I Deleted 10 Mac Apps and Replaced Them With Brow

Last month I opened my credit card statement and did something I should have done years ago: I added up every Mac productivity app I was paying for. CleanShot X renewal. Raycast Pro subscription. Grammarly Premium. Paste. The list kept going. When I hit the total, I stared at the number for a solid ten seconds. Over $50 a month. More than $600 a year. On apps that, individually, each did one thing well but collectively turned my Mac into a patchwork of overlapping tools, separate preference panes, and competing keyboard shortcuts.

That same week a friend sent me a link to Brow. "It does all of that," he said. I was skeptical. I'd heard the "one app to replace them all" pitch before and it usually meant mediocre at everything. But I installed it anyway, spent a weekend migrating my workflows, and within a week I had deleted every single one of those ten apps. Here's exactly what I replaced, what each cost me, and what Brow does instead.

1. CleanShot X ($29 + $19/yr) → Brow Screenshots

CleanShot was the app I thought I'd never give up. Scrolling capture, annotations, GIF recording, cloud upload — it was the best screenshot tool on Mac. Then I tried Brow's screenshot tool. It has OCR built in, so I can grab text from any image on screen instantly. GIF recording is there. Scrolling capture is there. It even includes a color picker that copies hex, RGB, or HSL with one click. The difference is that I access all of it from the notch or from the launcher, never leaving whatever I'm working on.

2. Raycast Pro ($10/mo) → Brow Launcher

I loved Raycast. It was fast, extensible, and felt like a superpower. But at $10 a month for the Pro features, it was my most expensive subscription after Grammarly. Brow's launcher opens in under 100 milliseconds with Option+Space. It searches apps, files, and system commands. It does math inline. It converts between 70+ currencies and handles 24+ unit conversions — length, weight, temperature, time zones, you name it. It runs system commands like emptying trash, toggling dark mode, or locking the screen. I haven't missed a single Raycast feature.

3. Grammarly Premium ($30/mo) → Brow AI

This was the big one. Thirty dollars a month for grammar and tone suggestions. Brow's AI replaced it with something so simple it almost feels like cheating: select any text in any app, press Shift twice, and the grammar is fixed in about one second. It uses AI that runs through Brow's backend, so it works everywhere — Mail, Slack, Notion, even terminal text editors. No browser extension. No separate app. No $30 monthly bill. I also use the same Shift-Shift shortcut to rewrite paragraphs, summarize long emails, and translate messages before sending them.

4. Paste ($3.99/mo) → Brow Clipboard

Paste was a beautiful clipboard manager, but it was yet another subscription. Brow's clipboard keeps unlimited history and lets me filter by type — text, images, links, code snippets, colors. I can pin items I use constantly, like my email signature or a frequently-used code block. Smart detection recognizes phone numbers, addresses, and URLs automatically. Everything's searchable and accessible from the launcher or a keyboard shortcut.

5. iStat Menus ($11.99) → Brow System Monitor

I used iStat Menus to keep an eye on CPU usage during heavy builds. Brow puts the same information in the notch area: CPU and RAM usage, battery health and cycle count, network upload and download speed, disk activity, and temperature readings for the CPU and GPU. It's always visible when I want it and completely hidden when I don't. No cluttered menu bar, no separate app window.

6. Bartender ($25) → Brow Menu Bar Manager

Speaking of the menu bar — Bartender was the app I used to hide the mess of icons up there. Brow has a built-in menu bar manager that lets me hide, show, and reorder icons. I keep the essentials visible and tuck everything else away. One less app running in the background, one less license to worry about.

7. Rectangle Pro ($9.99) → Brow Window Manager

Rectangle Pro handled window snapping and custom layouts for my multi-monitor setup. Brow does the same thing: drag a window to the edge of the screen and it snaps into place. I set up custom layouts for coding (editor left, terminal right, browser bottom) and switch between them with a shortcut. I can even save and restore entire desktop arrangements, so switching from "work mode" to "writing mode" takes one keystroke.

8. BetterDisplay ($21.99) → Brow Display Manager

I run an external monitor alongside my MacBook and BetterDisplay let me control brightness and resolution independently. Brow's display manager does the same thing. Per-display brightness, resolution switching, refresh rate control, and screen mirroring options — all accessible from the launcher or the notch. No separate menu bar icon, no separate settings window.

9. DeepL Pro ($8.75/mo) → Brow Translator

I work with a team spread across Europe and South America, so translation is part of my daily workflow. DeepL was excellent, but $8.75 a month for the Pro tier added up. Brow translates between 19+ languages with auto-detection, so I don't even need to specify the source language. It includes text-to-speech for pronunciation and works inline — select text, open the launcher, type "translate to Spanish," and the result appears instantly. Done.

10. Session ($4.99/mo) → Brow Focus Timer

Session was a lovely Pomodoro app, but at $4.99 a month it was hard to justify for a timer. Brow puts a Pomodoro timer directly in the notch. I start a focus session and the countdown sits right there at the top of my screen, subtle and always visible. But the real upgrade is app blocking and website blocking during focus sessions. When I'm in a deep work block, Twitter, YouTube, and Slack are simply unavailable. No willpower required.

The Math: $600-1,100 Per Year

Let me add it up. The subscriptions alone — Raycast Pro, Grammarly, Paste, DeepL, Session — came to about $57.73 per month, or $693 a year. Factor in the one-time purchases amortized over a couple of years (CleanShot X, iStat Menus, Bartender, Rectangle Pro, BetterDisplay) and the real annual cost sits somewhere between $600 and $1,100 depending on upgrade cycles. That's a lot of money for functionality that one app now handles.

The Unexpected Benefit

The savings are great, but the real win is something I didn't anticipate: zero context switching. Before Brow, taking a screenshot meant thinking about CleanShot. Checking CPU temperature meant finding the iStat icon. Fixing grammar meant waiting for Grammarly's sidebar to load. Now everything lives behind one hotkey — Option+Space. Screenshot, translate, convert currency, check battery health, manage windows, fix grammar. It's all there in one place, and it all responds in under 100 milliseconds because Brow is native Swift, not Electron.

My Mac feels lighter. My menu bar is clean. My credit card statement is simpler. And I'm not constantly switching between ten different apps with ten different design languages and ten different update schedules.

One More Thing

Brow is free during the beta. No credit card, no trial timer, no feature gates. Every single feature I described above is available right now at zero cost. I don't know what the pricing will look like after the beta ends, but even if it ends up being a paid app, it would have to cost more than $50 a month before I'd consider going back to my old setup. And I seriously doubt that will happen.

If your Mac looks anything like mine did — a graveyard of single-purpose productivity apps each skimming a few dollars a month — give Brow a try. It took me a weekend to switch. It will probably take you less.