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p/later-5Save all your Mac apps for later with one click
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Alyssa X

Later - Save all your Mac apps for later with one click

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Later is a Mac menu bar app that clears and restores your workspace with ease. Switch off from work, tidy up your desktop before screen sharing, schedule apps for later, and more.

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Alyssa X
Maker
Hey Product Hunt 👋 I'm sure you've all had this problem before. You want to share your screen or make a recording, and all your apps are in the way. So you have to close them all, and when you're finished, open them back one by one. Or maybe you've been working for ages, and want to take a break and get your mind off work, but you don't want to have to clear and restore your workspace manually later. I have. And I couldn't find any apps that could solve it, so I decided to learn Swift in a week and build Later. What the app does is simple, you can save all your apps with one click, and reopen them later. That's all. Here are some of its features: 👻 Hide or close all your apps ⚡️ Restore your session with just one click 👀 View metadata and a preview of your saved sessions ⏱ Schedule apps to reopen after some time to get back in the flow 🔋 Save battery by closing your apps instead of leaving them open ⌨️ Keyboard shortcuts to save and restore your session ⚙️ Advanced settings to ignore apps, terminate instead of hiding, etc. There's a 40% discount for the whole week, so make sure you don't miss out! If you're a maker and you're curious about how I built this app and tens of others I've launched in the past, I've been sharing all of my process on my newsletter every week and on Twitter. Shoutout to TopNotch for inspiring me with the UI and being a great reference of how a menu bar app should work - it's a super solid app! Hope you find this useful 💜 P.S. Just realized Product Hunt mutes the video by default 🥲 Unmute if you want to listen to some music that took me forever to find and time perfectly with the visuals!
Csaba Kissi
@alyssaxuu I remember your tweet where you mentioned you started learning Swift. This small app is really useful.
Alyssa X
Maker
@csaba_kissi Thank you :)
Alyssa X
Maker
@yankovichv Thanks Vladimir!
Myo
@alyssaxuu Thanks so much for the Killer App! That's amazing and most needed app for us as this era, we never shut down our machine any more.
Johannes Pittgens
Love the app and your landing page! @fariz_hakim @giacomo_bottoli Check this out!
Usama Khalid
Always making really coooool stuff!
Alyssa X
Maker
@usama_khalid Thank you!
andrew
this is so cool! does it persist sessions between macOS restarts?
Alyssa X
Maker
@andrew_breck Thank you so much! And yes, sessions are saved between restarts :)
Gabe Perez
This is really neat and just bought it! Quick question - how does Later impact RAM and CPU load?
Alyssa X
Maker
@gabe Thanks! Here you go:
Gabe Perez
@alyssaxuu wow this is beautiful, thank you! Is this a native Later reporting if not what tool!?
Rang Ali
What a neat product! Been looking for this. Congrats on another launch 🚀
Alyssa X
Maker
@rang Thank you so much Rang :)
Peter Trizuliak
This is absolutely amazing!
Alyssa X
Maker
@parking_pete Thanks Peter :)
Peter Trizuliak
Hi @alyssaxuu - it's been few days since I've been using Later and it's awesome. Thanks a lot. By using it daily, I came up with a "feature request" - my case is that I am using it at work, so I have 7-8 different windows open when I am coding, but then, I want 10-15 min break with Twitter, PH etc. I would like to have 2 (or more) minimized sets of applications that I could be switching between. Like set of deep focus applications and set of distraction applications. Do you think that makes sense and would be something you'd be able to add to Later? Thanks!
Harshit Choudhary
Such a handy tool. Have you thought of adding it to SetApp?
Alyssa X
Maker
@choudhary I've contacted them to see if they could add it, but sadly they haven't replied to me yet
Abraham Aremu
Please send it in one of your newsletter issues when it gets added to setapp. I'm sure it will.
Alyssa X
Maker
@anuoluwapo_abraham I will definitely make an announcement if it does! :)
Anna Filou
Love the little demo on the website! Suggestion: make the FAQ part of the main site instead of redirecting to Notion (the subsequent redirects are not a great experience). Question: by default, Later only hides app, same as what happens after you hit ⌘H, right? That’s how the session is preserved intact. But if I select “Quit apps instead of hiding”, then it quits the apps and relaunches them. In that case, my tabs won’t be restored, right? For example, if I have multiple spreadsheets open in Excel, Later will relaunch the app, but will not open the specific files too.
Alyssa X
Maker
@anna_0x Thank you! I might move the FAQ into the main site, it's just easier to edit and add to it if it's in Notion :P And yes, by default it hides the apps only. In terms of relaunching, it depends on the app, for example Chrome, Notion, Figma... will save state. But other apps like Safari won't by default. I believe apps generally have settings for this, but it's not something I can override with Later altogether, it has to be set by the user manually sadly.
Leo Selie
Absolutely love it! Instant buy for me!
Alyssa X
Maker
@leo_at_zapier Thank you Lionel!
Ton
Looks great! Does Later support multiple sessions/workspaces? Or just the one?
Alyssa X
Maker
@t55 Thanks! Currently it only supports one at a time.
Ton
@alyssaxuu Ok, thanks Alyssa. Not sure if it fits my workflow as it is, but it certainly is nice to have tools like this made for the Mac.
Scott Bauer
@t55 I found an app that supports multiple workspaces and open the apps files and/or tabs. You can find it here: https://www.metatechcreations.co...
Ton
@nighthawk11120 Yup, I'll ask if there will be a trial version in the future. Not sure to spend 50% on something that I can't check myself. But thanks for the heads-up!
Ryan Hoover
I typically open up all the same apps every time I reboot. Love the simplicity of simple workflow apps like this.
Alyssa X
Maker
@rrhoover Thank you Ryan! Definitely a use case for the app :)
The landing page and video are killa! I might have to go buy me a MAC now. Phenomenal work!
Alyssa X
Maker
Tomas Klohna
I like it. Is there any additional battery savings from hiding other than the no need to render them?
Alyssa X
Maker
@klohnatomas The battery savings are mostly from using the "quit apps" option in the popup. It was the default option on launch but I switched it around. Although I am investigating ways to block network usage for hidden apps among other things at the moment.
Rowe Morehouse
@alyssaxuu Who made the great demo video for "Later" ???? … really well done. How was it made?
Alyssa X
Maker
@rowemore Haha thanks, I made it myself :) I wrote about how I made it in this Medium article: https://medium.com/women-make/ho...
Bora
"I decided to learn Swift in a week and build Later" 💪🔥 good one. congrats.
Alyssa X
Maker
@boraoztunc Haha :P Thanks!
Kim Salmi
Neat! 🔥
Rachel How
I love this! <3
Alyssa X
Maker
@rachelhow Thanks Rachel!
Kyler Phillips
So useful, congrats on the launch Alyssa! 🎉🚀⏰
Alyssa X
Maker
@kylerjphillips Thank you Kyler!