Mac to Windows: Complete Productivity App Guide
Clipboard history on a Mac was a separate app, Paste or Maccy, because the Mac does not keep that list for you. The little utilities lived in the menu bar. Per-app volume was a trip into Audio MIDI Setup, or a menu app such as SoundSource. HazeOver dimmed every window except the one you were using. Those four jobs are the ones that feel missing on the first afternoon, and each one has a control on this PC.
What those Mac apps were doing
HazeOver dims the windows behind the front one, the Paste app keeps later clips, plus Hand Mirror for the camera ahead of a call. Alfred and Raycast launched apps from the keyboard. Bartender and Dozer tidied the menu bar. Rectangle and Magnet snapped windows, because macOS did not tile them from the maximize button the way Windows 11 does. Those are keys you already reach for.
Alfred, BetterTouchTool, and Bartender are still Mac apps, They stay on the Mac. The table names the Windows control that does the same job when one is known. Notion, Obsidian, Visual Studio Code, and Figma already have a Windows version, so those do not need a substitute.
What Windows already does without an extra install
Snap Layouts appear when you hover the maximize button, or when you press Win+Z, because Windows 11 can tile a window into a half or a quarter from that grid. Win+Left and Win+Right snap a half, Win+Up fills the screen, or Win+Down restores the window, and Win+Shift with an arrow moves that window to the other monitor. PowerToys, from Microsoft, adds FancyZones on top of that, with Shift held while you drag a window into a zone you drew.
Win+. opens the emoji panel, which is the job Rocket did. Night Light under Settings, System, Display is the job Flux did. Do Not Disturb, the same switch older builds label Focus Assist, is under Settings. The system tray beside the clock is the menu bar, and taskbar settings hide the icons Bartender or Dozer used to hide.
Mac app and the control on this PC
The Windows name is the thing to install or the key to press. PeakFlow is one installer for six of the rows. You can turn each tool off.
| Mac App | Category | Windows Alternative | Key Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| HazeOver | Focus | FocusDim | Dims the windows behind the front one. Strength runs from 10% to 90%, and the default is 60%. |
| Be Focused | Pomodoro | Liquid Focus | 25 minutes of work, 5 minutes of break, 15 minutes after four work sessions. Breaks stay off until you turn them on. |
| Paste | Clipboard | QuickBoard | Fuzzy search, pins, and a history that remains after a restart. The default cap is 500 unpinned clips. |
| Maccy | Clipboard | QuickBoard | Same QuickBoard window. Plain-text paste is there when you need the words only. |
| Hand Mirror | Video Call | MeetReady | Checks the camera and the microphone. It can open 2 minutes before a meeting when that switch is on. |
| In Your Face | Calendar Alert | ScreenSlap | Full-screen notice on a Google Calendar poll. Default warning is 1 minute, and the notice stays 60 seconds. |
| SoundSource | Audio Control | SoundSplit | A volume slider for each app, and those levels can be remembered. |
| Rectangle | Window Management | Windows Snap + FancyZones | Win+Left and Win+Right snap halves. Hover the maximize button for layouts. FancyZones is in PowerToys. |
| Magnet | Window Management | Windows Snap Layouts | Snap Layouts are part of Windows 11. Win+Z opens the grid. |
| Alfred | Launcher | PowerToys Run | Alt+Space after you install PowerToys. Microsoft ships the package. |
| Bartender | Menu Bar | System tray (native) | Icons sit in the tray by the clock. Taskbar settings hide the ones you do not want. |
| BetterTouchTool | Gestures | Touchpad gestures (native) | A precision touchpad already has gestures for Task View and for showing the desktop. |
| CleanShot X | Screenshots | ShareX | ShareX captures a region, a window, or the whole screen, and it can mark up the picture. |
| Rocket | Emoji Picker | Win + . (native) | The emoji panel is part of Windows. |
| Amphetamine | Keep Awake | Caffeine / PowerToys Awake | PowerToys Awake keeps the PC from sleeping, which is the job Amphetamine did. |
| iStat Menus | System Monitor | MSI Afterburner + HWiNFO | HWiNFO and MSI Afterburner read temperatures and other hardware sensors. |
| Dozer | Menu Bar Hiding | System tray auto-hide | The tray can hide icons. That setting is on the taskbar page. |
| TextSniper | OCR | PowerToys Text Extractor | Win+Shift+T reads text off the screen. Microsoft ships it inside PowerToys. |
| Flux | Blue Light Filter | Night Light (native) | Night Light is under Settings, System, Display. |
| Raycast | Productivity Launcher | PowerToys Run + Wox | PowerToys Run is the Microsoft launcher. Wox is the other launcher for the same job. |
Dimming and the timer
HazeOver and FocusDim
Other windows, dimmed, on a Mac
Other windows, dimmed, on this PC
FocusDim dims the windows behind the one you are using. Active mode leaves the front window bright. App mode leaves every window from that same app bright, so an editor and its terminal stay readable together. All Windows mode dims the desktop and the taskbar when you need an editor and a browser bright at the same time. Drag escape is on by default: while you drag, the dimming fades so the drop target is visible, then it returns.
- Strength slider from 10% to 90%, default 60%
- Default key Ctrl+Shift+D
- You can exclude an app, change the dim color, or turn one monitor off
The menu-bar timer
Timer in the Mac menu bar
Timer inside PeakFlow
The timer starts at 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of break, because the long break of 15 minutes waits until four work sessions have finished. Breaks do not start by themselves unless you turn that on.
During a running work session, a local helper on 127.0.0.1 tells the PeakFlow browser extension which sites to block. The default names are YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, Netflix, Twitter, and X. The block lasts for that work session, because it is not a block for the whole PC by itself. Cold Turkey and Freedom are the other blockers for a chosen site list, and the site-block notes explain that block. The music app and Forest sit beside the longer desk setup.
The camera check looks for a face in the frame, not your eyes. The check stays off until you turn it on, because it is a Pro feature included in the 14 days of Pro that come with the download. If the face stays out for the number of seconds you set, the timer records an interruption plus a pause, with a default wait of 5 seconds. When the face comes back, that pause resumes. A pause you started yourself is not resumed by the camera. Frames are checked on the computer, then discarded, so no video is stored or sent.
Clipboard history
The Paste app and Maccy were the separate apps. Win+V is the built-in list, and it is off until you turn it on: 25 items, no search, unpinned items cleared on restart, with text sync only when the Microsoft account switch is on.
Clipboard apps
Separate clipboard apps on a Mac
Ctrl+Shift+V on this PC
QuickBoard opens with Ctrl+Shift+V on this PC, with fuzzy search and plain-text paste for unformatted words. Unpinned clips older than 24 hours are removed by default, but pinned clips stay, though the field accepts 10 to 2000 unpinned clips with a default of 500 and with pins kept above that cap.
A copied image can be read for text on this machine. Text that matches the secret detector is kept in masked form, because the clip is not discarded. QuickBoard does not record the clip when the front window title matches 1Password, Bitwarden, LastPass, KeePass, Dashlane, RoboForm, Keeper, NordPass, Enpass, Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, PayPal, Windows Security, Credential Manager, or User Account Control, because those titles are the built-in skip list. Encryption of the history store stays off until you turn it on, with encrypted history in Pro.
Free QuickBoard has history, pins, full-text search, image clips, source tracking, text edit, and link preview, along with ordinary copy and paste. Pro adds AI text cleanup, translation, AI suggestions, custom transforms, tags, collections, import, export, saved action chains, plus that encrypted store. The AI actions are not part of the free board.
Cameras and calendars
Hand Mirror and MeetReady
Camera peek from the Mac menu bar
Camera and microphone on this PC
MeetReady checks the camera and the microphone before a call. The default key is Ctrl+Shift+M. It can open itself 2 minutes before a meeting when that switch is on, so the check happens while you are still outside the call. Krisp is the noise tool for both Mac and Windows. NVIDIA Broadcast needs an NVIDIA graphics card when you want its background removal or auto-frame. OBS Virtual Camera is the extra camera path. Windows 11 Studio Effects can blur the background when the camera supports that effect.
In Your Face and ScreenSlap
A meeting notice that fills the Mac screen
A meeting notice that fills this screen
ScreenSlap shows a full-screen notice for an event on the connected Google Calendar, with the default warning 1 minute out, the notice up for 60 seconds, and sound on unless you mute it. The calendar is checked on a poll, so this is not a push guarantee. Outlook, Zoom, and warning choices other than the 1 minute default are not controls that ship.
Volume for each app
SoundSource put a slider on each Mac app, from the menu bar, because the speaker icon is one level for every app. Audio MIDI Setup was the other place people opened for that job. On this PC the Volume Mixer lives under Settings, System, Sound. Right-click the speaker icon and the mixer is there too.
SoundSource and SoundSplit
Per-app volume from the Mac menu bar
Per-app sliders on this PC
SoundSplit gives each app its own volume slider, and it can remember those levels. It does not draw a live master-volume meter. Sending Slack to a headset while music stays on the speakers is a Windows sound setting, under Settings, System, Sound, because that routing is the operating system and not a SoundSplit extra.
Window snapping
Rectangle and Magnet took a keyboard shortcut, often Command+Option+Left, and put the front window on the left half. Windows does that with Win+Left, and the layouts from the maximize button cover the quarter grids Magnet users drew by hand. Snap groups can be reopened later from the taskbar hover, when Windows has remembered that group.
FancyZones, inside PowerToys, is the custom grid. Hold Shift while you drag a window and it drops into a zone. A wide monitor can be three columns. A coding layout can be the editor, a terminal, and a browser. The shortcut page lists the Win+arrow keys in one place. Each monitor can keep its own scale and its own refresh rate from Settings, System, Display. That is the multi-monitor control.
Other apps for the same jobs
PowerToys
PowerToys is free and Microsoft maintains it. Install it from the Microsoft Store or from the PowerToys GitHub repository.
Inside that package: PowerToys Run on Alt+Space, in the role Alfred or Raycast had; FancyZones for a grid; a color picker on Win+Shift+C; text extraction on Win+Shift+T for the TextSniper job; File Locksmith; PowerRename; Image Resizer on the right-click menu; Keyboard Manager for Command-shaped keys; Always On Top on Win+Ctrl+T; and Awake, the job Amphetamine and Caffeine did.
Everything
Everything, from voidtools, builds an index of file names, because you can then find a file by its name. Pick a hotkey that Windows Search is not already using. Win+S belongs to Windows Search, so leave that one alone.
ShareX
CleanShot X was the Mac capture app. ShareX, from getsharex.com, captures a region, a window, the full screen, or a scrolling page. It can mark up the shot, read text off the picture, record a GIF, and pick a color. Windows already snips with Win+Shift+S if you only need a region. ShareX has more switches to set before the capture looks the way you want.
AutoHotkey
Keyboard Maestro was the Mac scripting app. AutoHotkey is the Windows scripting tool beside it, for a text expansion, a custom key, or a small window script.
WSL2
The Mac terminal sat on a Unix base. Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 runs a Linux distribution beside Windows, and each side can see the other side's files. Visual Studio Code can attach to that distribution.
What to set on the first day
1 Windows Update
Open Settings, then Windows Update, and install what is waiting, with a restart if it asks. Snap Layouts and clipboard history are a poor fit on a half-updated PC, because the switch you want may not be there yet.
2 PowerToys
Install PowerToys from the Microsoft Store. Turn on PowerToys Run and set it to Alt+Space, because Command+Space was Spotlight and your hand will look for a launcher there.
3 PeakFlow Setup 1.6.5
Download PeakFlow Setup 1.6.5 from the homepage download section. That Windows installer is 134 MB. A Mac version is coming soon. Do not install a 1.3.1 setup you found on an old bookmark. The six tools are FocusDim, QuickBoard, MeetReady, ScreenSlap, SoundSplit, and LiquidFocus. Turn off any tool you do not want. The core tools have no time limit, no account, and no telemetry. The download has 14 days of Pro in it.
- FocusDim for the windows behind the front one
- QuickBoard for copies after the next copy
- MeetReady for the camera and the microphone
- ScreenSlap for the full-screen calendar notice
- SoundSplit for a slider per app
- LiquidFocus for the 25-minute timer
Pro is $6.99 a month or $39.99 a year, which the price table shows as $3.33 a month. A single tool is $9.99 to keep, as a v1 license, while all six are $49.99 to keep. Custom hotkeys, the face check, and the AI clipboard actions are the Pro set. The default keys work without that plan: Ctrl+Shift+D, Ctrl+Shift+V, and Ctrl+Shift+M.
4 Everything
Install Everything from voidtools if you want a file-name index. Give it a hotkey other than Win+S.
5 Snap Layouts
Open Settings, System, Multitasking. Turn on Snap windows. Leave these on if you want the Mac-like tiling:
- Show snap layouts when I hover over a window's maximize button
- Show what I can snap next to a window
Then press Win+Left and Win+Right a few times so the hand learns the new keys.
6 FancyZones
Open PowerToys, then FancyZones, then edit zones, holding Shift while you drag a window into a zone, or skip this step when the built-in layouts are enough.
7 ShareX
Install ShareX from getsharex.com if Win+Shift+S is too small for the captures you used to make. Set the hotkeys inside ShareX to keys you are not already using.
8 Switches already on the PC
Clipboard history is Win+V after you enable it, the emoji panel is Win+., a new virtual desktop is Win+Ctrl+D, Night Light is under Settings, System, Display, and Do Not Disturb is under Settings, System, with older builds labeling that switch Focus Assist.
9 Browser add-ons you already had
The Chrome or Firefox add-ons from the Mac install on the Windows browser of the same name. Install 1Password, Bitwarden, uBlock Origin, Grammarly, Dark Reader, or Vimium for the add-on you used, because a fresh Windows profile does not bring them over.
10 Apps that already have a Windows version
Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave, Slack, Discord, Zoom, Teams, VS Code, Git, Docker Desktop, Notion, Obsidian, OneNote, Figma in the browser, Adobe Creative Cloud, Todoist, Trello, and Asana each have a Windows build. You are not hunting a Mac-only installer for those.
11 Taskbar
Right-click the taskbar and open taskbar settings, where left alignment puts the icons on the left, closer to where a Dock sat, which is only a switch. Pin the apps you launch every day, and hide tray icons you do not want, because that is the Bartender job.
12 A copy of the files
Time Machine does not run here, so File History under Settings, System, Storage, Advanced storage settings, Backup options is the local copy, able to write to an external drive or a network folder. Backblaze, CrashPlan, and OneDrive are the offsite copies. An exFAT drive also carries documents and photos from the Mac, because both systems can read exFAT.
PeakFlow Setup 1.6.5
The homepage download is PeakFlow Setup 1.6.5 for Windows, 134 MB, with core tools free of a cutoff and 14 days of Pro in the file.
Download PeakFlow Suite (Free)Questions from the first week
Snap Layouts, clipboard history, the emoji panel, Night Light, Do Not Disturb, plus the Volume Mixer are already part of Windows, because PowerToys covers the launcher, the zones, and on-screen text, with PeakFlow's core tools free of a cutoff and with Pro optional at $6.99 a month or $39.99 a year past the 14 days in the download.
Windows Security is already on Windows 11, so a second antivirus is not required for the ordinary job on a PC whose setup also asks for TPM 2.0 plus Secure Boot.
A Mac app does not run on this PC, because Parallels plus Boot Camp go the other way, with the Windows builds of Notion, Figma, Slack, plus VS Code as the installs to use.
Documents and photos can move on an exFAT drive, OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, a network copy, or Laplink PCmover if that mover was already the plan, because app settings stay on the Mac for a fresh setup here.
Copying moves from Command to Ctrl, app switching moves from Command+Tab to Alt+Tab, plus closing the front window moves from Command+Q to Alt+F4, because that key sits in a different place.
Menu-bar icons now sit in the system tray beside the clock, because taskbar settings hide the unwanted ones, the old Bartender plus Dozer job, with each PeakFlow tool able to be switched off inside one installer.
A precision touchpad has gestures for Task View, for showing the desktop, plus moving between virtual desktops, while a desktop mouse still works.
iCloud in a browser at icloud.com can open Mail, Calendar, Photos, Drive, plus Notes, because iMessage stays on Apple devices along with FaceTime plus Handoff, with WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, or SMS from an Android phone as the stand-ins.
Keep the Mac nearby for a while, because app settings do not travel with the files. This PC should get PeakFlow Setup 1.6.5 rather than a 1.3.1 installer. PeakFlow for Mac is coming soon.
The four jobs that feel missing, dimming, the copy list, the menu bar, and per-app volume, are Win+V or QuickBoard, the system tray, the Volume Mixer or SoundSplit, and FocusDim. The installer to get is PeakFlow Setup 1.6.5.