Author: Nathan Alderman

Leaving your MacBook plugged in all the time—for example, in order to use it with an external monitor while its lid’s shut—can be bad for the battery’s longevity. The Battery Project’s FruitJuice (Mac App Store link) aims to help you keep your battery healthy by telling you when and for how long you’ll need to unplug each day.

The bigger hard drives get, the more room they provide for unwanted files to clutter up your disk and steal space you could otherwise put to better use. Rocky Sand Studio’s Disk Diag (Mac App Store link) hunts down and eliminates these megabyte-hogging miscreants, while keeping you fully informed and in control of the process.

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I’ve kept paper journals in the past, but never stuck with them. Filling those blank pages felt too much like a chore. Bloom Built’s superb Day One (Mac App Store link) makes keeping a journal easier than ever, thanks to smart features and a beautiful, welcoming interface.

Editor’s note: The following review is part of Macworld’s GemFest 2014. Every day (except weekends) from July until September, the Macworld staff will use the Mac Gems blog to briefly cover a standout free, low-cost, or great-value program. You can view a list of this year’s apps, updated daily, on our handy GemFest chart, and you can visit the Mac Gems homepage for past Mac Gems reviews.

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A recent surge of worthy new email clients offers Mac users some of the best choices they’ve ever had for managing their mail. With a panoply of clever features and new ideas, these contenders have also mounted a serious challenge to the relatively stagnant Apple Mail and Microsoft Outlook. But with so may options to choose from, it’s now even harder to pick out the best email client for your particular needs. We’ve found one strong program that offers a great mix of features, usability, and value for a broad swath of users, plus several more that will cater well to more specialized preferences.

Top choice: Postbox 3

Postbox 3 () isn’t the newest or sleekest candidate in this roundup. Its design hews more closely to the traditional Mac look and feel, rather than adopting a slick iOS-like appearance. But for $10, it combines reliable performance, smart design, and a wide array of impressive features that make the program feel like what Apple Mail ought to be.

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Shay is stuck on a spaceship that’s smothering him in cozy, childish comfort. Vella’s not wild about her family’s plans to sacrifice her to a giant monster in order to save their village. Though they live in different worlds, both are growing up and rebelling against the expectations set for them. But neither suspects what’s really going on around them.

That’s the inspired premise for Broken Age, born from one of gaming’s most successful Kickstarter campaigns. Production delays mean that only its first half is available now, with a promise of a free update adding the rest later this year. But even incomplete, Broken Age tells a fantastic, funny, thought-provoking story.

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If your inbox is a many-headed beast that you battle every day, Mail Pilot (Mac App Store link) might just be the enchanted blade that helps you slay that email monster once and for all. This new program’s sleek looks conceal a few still-rough edges, and its singular approach to email may not fit with your own. But Mail Pilot nonetheless offers a clean, impressive, often beautiful way to manage unruly email.

Born from a Kickstarter by two Virginia Tech grads, Mail Pilot seems inspired by management guru David Allen’s Getting Things Done approach to productivity. In the simplest terms, Allen encourages people to finish tasks they can easily accomplish right away, and put aside thornier jobs until they have time to tackle them properly.

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