A curated list of handy-dandy tools for Mac Admins.
Inspired by the awesome list.
A free package creation tool. The gold standard of making your own custom installer packages.
munki-pkg is a simple tool for building packages. While it was developed for use with munki, it can be used to make pkgs that are deployable with any management framework.
Automated third party package download and creation for deployment.
GUI for AutoPkg, with click-to-add functionality of additional components
Create deployable system images from macOS installers.*
An application for inspecting the contents of macOS packages.
Automate the creation of NetBoot images (NBIs) for use with Jamf Imaging.*
Jamf's in-house package creator tool. Builds pkgs and dmgs made for deployment with the Jamf Pro Suite, but pkgs built with Composer can be used with any management framework.
An Automator application that quickly builds payload-free pkgs for deployment.
A customizable onboarding app designed to work with Jamf Pro and DEP.
A lightweight notification app designed to let users know what's happening during DEP enrollment.
A setup/splash screen for DEP and user-initiated Jamf Pro enrollments. Detailed documentation highlights how to work with the application in Xcode to customize it for your organization's needs.
An free, open source, hackable text editor.
A high performance, cross-platform text editor.
Apple's integrated development environment (IDE) containing a suite of software development tools developed by Apple for developing software used by Apple hardware. Free with an Apple ID.
Clean and simple HTML & text editor, made by Bare Bones Software. $49.99 at their site, or in the Mac App Store.
An open source markdown editor for macOS.
Microsoft's source code editor in a lightweight, open source, cross-platform application.
Team chat and productivity client. I mean, you know what Slack is. Anyone can create a free time with ten integrations. (Join the MacAdmins Slack!) There are over 15k users in the MacAdmins Slack. Drink from the firehose and get answers from the biggest hivemind of Apple-centric IT folks in the universe.
Slack recently integrated Screenhero into the Slack client. Easily call colleagues with video chat and screensharing from within a Slack team.
Use Trello's boards, lists, and cards to organize and prioritize your projects. Free, browser-based and mobile app interface. And it integrates with Slack (see above)!
Virtual sticky notes, lists, photos, and audio. Included with Gmail accounts.
LastPass stores your passwords and makes it easy to auto-fill and quickly sign into webapps without retyping your credentials. It also helps generate new passwords and warns you when use the same password for different services.
Works with your Jamf server to identify objects not currently being used, out of date, or are generally "crufty".
Quickly recategorize policies and packages in Jamf Pro, and even more unused categories.
A handy script that converts a never-booted DMG into a VMware Fusion VM.
A tool to migrate data granularly between Jamf Pro servers.
Easily capture GIFs from your Mac, great for documentation.
A small application which allows you to thoroughly uninstall unwanted apps.
Rotates through beautiful new desktop wallpapers
A caffeine replacement that prevents your Mac from sleeping.
The functionality you want from a Mac bound to Active Directory without having to actually bind to AD. (Make sure you check out this NoMAD updater as well.)
A handy menubar application to get users in touch with IT and quickly get information and resources on their Mac.
A helper app for Hello IT to make building mobileconfig files easy!
Customizable menubar that checks for hardware status, management framework status, and other handy information.
To the extent possible under law, Emily Kausalik has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work.