I’ve found several community-made macOS tools that improve window management, customization, and productivity. Which popular features should Apple build directly into macOS, and why would they improve the overall user experience?
The important distinction is whether a utility needs deep system permissions to work. Features such as clipboard history, window control, keyboard remapping, and per-app audio routing are much better handled by macOS itself than by several background apps requesting Accessibility, Screen Recording, or Input Monitoring access.
My priorities would be reliable window rules for specific apps, a searchable clipboard history with password-manager exclusions, better menu bar organization, and system-wide keyboard shortcuts that can launch apps or run actions. Apple’s current window tools cover basic positioning, but they still fall short when you want an app to open on a certain display, desktop, or layout every time. Per-app volume controls would be useful too, especially during calls when music, alerts, and meeting audio all compete.
Apple should leave highly visual customization to third-party developers. Built-in features tend to get simplified, and that could flatten the more creative utilities people like. The best additions are the boring foundational ones that become safer, faster, and more consistent when they are part of the operating system.
Apple should fix backup and recovery before absorbing more utility features. Time Machine needs clearer version browsing, better reporting when backups fail, and an easier way to restore individual app data. @codecrafter is right about permissions, but a dependable built-in safety net would improve every Mac user’s experience, including people who never install customization tools.
Backup matters, but Apple shouldn’t wait on it before fixing window management. Proper per-app window rules and keyboard-driven placement would remove a daily annoyance without forcing users to grant broad accessibility permissions to third-party tools.
Apple does not need to copy every popular utility into System Settings. It needs to provide the stable system layer those utilities currently have to fake with Accessibility permissions, private APIs, polling, and fragile workarounds.
A proper automation and command system would have the widest benefit. Think of a built-in command palette that can search menu commands, trigger Shortcuts, move windows, change audio devices, toggle settings, and run app actions from the keyboard. Spotlight finds files and launches apps, but it still does not feel like a consistent control surface for the Mac. Apple already has many of the pieces. They are scattered across Spotlight, Shortcuts, Automator remnants, app menus, and keyboard settings.
Window management is a good example of why the underlying design matters more than adding another tiling button. @bluepixel3309 is right that placement rules would solve a daily problem, but those rules should use persistent identifiers rather than guessing from an app name or window title. The system should understand displays, Spaces, window roles, and whether a window is temporary. Otherwise rules break when you unplug a monitor, rename a desktop, or an app opens a dialog that looks like a normal window. A native implementation could handle those cases much more reliably.
I would apply the same approach to menu bar items and audio. Give users a supported way to hide, reorder, and group menu extras, then give developers an API that behaves consistently. For sound, macOS should expose an actual per-app mixer with output-device selection. Sending a meeting app to headphones while music stays on speakers should not require virtual audio drivers. Those drivers can be useful, but they are a lot of machinery for a basic routing task.
Clipboard history belongs in macOS too, though it needs stricter boundaries than most third-party versions. Apps should be able to mark copied content as sensitive or temporary, and users should be able to exclude applications entirely. The history database should have a visible retention setting and an obvious clear button. A feature that quietly stores passwords, recovery codes, or private documents would create a new problem while solving a small convenience issue.
I would put Time Machine improvements in a separate category from these additions. @myst1c_server is right that failed backups need clearer reporting, but backup reliability should not become a reason to postpone smaller system features for years. Apple can work on both. The common requirement is transparency: show what macOS is doing, explain why an action failed, and let users control it without installing another background process.
The thing nobody’s weighing here is what Apple actually does with a feature after it ships. Half the wishlist in this thread assumes a native version would stay good. Apple’s track record says otherwise. Stage Manager landed, got a lukewarm reception, and has barely moved since. Built-in features often get a strong first release and then sit frozen for years while the third-party tools keep iterating. So ‘put it in the OS’ can mean ‘freeze it at version one.’
That matters for the window management push from @bluepixel3309 and the automation layer @pandaking laid out. I’m with @pandaking that persistent identifiers and real window roles are the right foundation, and honestly that’s the only version worth wanting. But if Apple ships a rules engine that only understands displays and Spaces at a basic level and then walks away, you end up worse off, because the third-party developers who solved the hard cases get sherlocked out of business first. The users who lose most are the power users who actually needed the depth.
On the clipboard point, I’d go further than the caveats already mentioned. A visible retention setting and a clear button are fine, but the real risk is iCloud sync. Universal Clipboard already moves stuff between your devices. A synced history without a hard local-only mode means your copied 2FA codes and private text are riding along to every Mac and iPhone on your account. If Apple builds this, local-only should be the default, not a buried toggle.
Per-app audio I’ll just agree with plainly. There’s no good reason routing a call to headphones while music stays on the speakers needs a virtual driver in 2024. That one is overdue and low risk.
Where I part from the general optimism: the safest additions here are the boring plumbing ones, like the audio mixer and a supported menu bar API. The ambitious stuff, the command palette and smart window rules, only helps if Apple commits to maintaining it. Given the pattern, I’d rather they expose stable APIs and let the utilities keep doing the clever parts than absorb the features and let them rot.
Dragging an app to the Trash still doesn’t tell you what it leaves behind. A proper built-in uninstaller is higher on my list than another window layout feature.
macOS should show everything tied to an app: background helpers, login items, extensions, containers, caches, and saved settings. When removing it, you could choose “keep documents and preferences” or “remove everything.” The OS is in a much better position to do this safely than a cleanup utility guessing which files belong together.
Storage management needs the same treatment. Categories like “System Data” are not useful when they grow large and macOS gives you no clear explanation. Let people inspect old device backups, abandoned app data, developer files, local snapshots, and oversized caches without digging through Library folders.
I agree with @rocketthinker3831 that Apple should be cautious about absorbing clever utilities and then neglecting them. Uninstall and storage tools are different, though. They depend on information the system already has, and third-party apps can never get a completely reliable view. This is exactly the boring housekeeping macOS should handle itself.
Docked and undocked Macs are treated too much like the same setup. macOS should have system profiles that remember different display arrangements, audio outputs, Focus settings, Dock behavior, and window layouts depending on which monitors or accessories are connected.
That would make @pandaking’s window and audio ideas work together instead of becoming separate settings pages. Apple should keep those profiles local to each Mac, though. Syncing desktop-specific choices through iCloud would turn a useful feature into a constant cleanup job.
macOS needs a real per-app network switch.
Users should be able to see which apps are making outbound connections, block an app permanently, allow it once, or limit it to local devices. That belongs in System Settings, with plain descriptions instead of a wall of addresses and process names. It would help catch abandoned helpers, unnecessary telemetry, and apps that have no good reason to contact the internet.
This fits with @epicrouter6245’s uninstall point. macOS should show what an app installs, what runs in the background, and what it connects to. The catch is that Apple must avoid turning every launch into a permission-popup quiz. Give sensible defaults, keep a readable activity history, and let people investigate when something looks wrong.