Design work rarely happens in one app. It happens in the gaps between them: the export that lands in the wrong folder, the font that's missing on one machine, the reference you can't find again. The good news? Each of these six apps makes one of those gaps a whole lot smaller.
Where the time actually goes
If you design for screens, your day is a loop. Frame something in Figma, open an image in Photoshop, save an export, find it in Finder, drop it into the browser to check it, measure what the browser did to it, and go back to Figma. None of those steps is hard. Together they add up to a lot of hunting, and every hunt is a chance to lose the idea you were holding.
Sound familiar? Here are a few snags you might recognize:
- You export a PNG, then click through folders for a minute trying to find where it went.
- You drag an image toward Figma, and the Figma window is hiding behind five others.
- The build "matches the design," and you're not so sure.
- A client's hero image is far heavier than it needs to be.
- You open a document and the fonts are missing. Again.
- You need one particular Photoshop document, but ⌘ Tab only shows you Photoshop.
Each app below shortens one part of that loop. None of them asks you to change how you design.
Getting files where they need to go
1. Default Folder X: better Open and Save dialogs
Every export and every Save As starts with a dialog, and the standard one doesn't remember much. Default Folder X adds your recent folders, favorite folders and currently open Finder windows to every Open and Save dialog, in every app. Export from Photoshop and the client folder you had open in Finder a minute ago is one click away. It also adds quick search, previews and tagging right inside the dialog.
Perfect for: anyone who exports, saves and uploads dozens of files a day. Favorite feature: with a dialog open, click any Finder window and the dialog jumps straight to that folder. It also re-selects the last file you opened, and you can set a default folder for each app, so every app starts you off in the right place.
A built-in tip while you're there: in an Open or Save dialog, ⇧⌘ G opens Go to Folder, where you can type or paste a path.
2. Dropover: a shelf for dragging between apps
Dragging a file from Finder into Figma is easy when both windows are visible. It's much harder when they're stacked behind six others. Dropover opens a small floating shelf when you shake the pointer mid-drag, or when you press a shortcut. Drop files, images or links on the shelf, go find the destination, then drag everything off at once. Shelves can be named and color-coded, and built-in actions handle small jobs like resizing images or making a ZIP archive.
Perfect for: designers who gather things from lots of sources, like decks, handoff folders and social posts. Favorite feature: more instant actions. Dropover can also extract text and upload files to get a shareable link, right from the shelf. Pin a shelf to keep it handy in the menu bar, or reopen a recently closed one if you let it go too soon.
Checking the work
3. xScope: measure anything on screen
Figma tells you what you designed. The browser shows you what got built. xScope, from The Iconfactory, measures both with the same set of tools: on-screen rulers, a loupe that magnifies pixels and copies colors, floating guides, and a dimensions tool that finds the size of an element as you hover over it. Its Overlay tool lays grids and mockups over a browser window, which is handy when you're checking a responsive layout against the design.
Perfect for: UI designers and anyone who reviews builds. Favorite feature: the Loupe does more than magnify. It can also simulate color vision impairments, a quick, practical accessibility check before a design goes out. And the Mirror tool lets you see your designs on iOS devices and Apple Watch, straight from your Mac.
4. Clop: smaller exports without an extra step
Heavy images slow pages down and bounce off attachment limits. Clop optimizes images, videos and PDFs automatically when you copy them, and it can watch folders (your Desktop, where screenshots land, is a good one) and shrink new files as they arrive. You can also drop files on it to downscale, crop or convert them. It runs quietly from the menu bar.
Perfect for: web designers, social designers and anyone whose files end up in inboxes. Getting-started tip: point Clop at your Desktop first and let it tidy up in the background for a week before you add more folders. All the processing happens locally on your Mac, and the app is open source.
Keeping fonts in step
5. RightFont: one font library for every app
A missing font is a small problem that stops everything. RightFont is a font manager that previews, organizes and activates fonts from one library. It can sync Google Fonts for use in any Mac app, notice missing fonts when you open a document in Photoshop or Illustrator and offer to activate them, and its Figma plugin finds and activates the fonts a Figma file is missing. Your type stops depending on which app you happened to open first.
Perfect for: type lovers, brand designers and anyone juggling client font libraries. Favorite feature: preview fonts without installing them, then gather favorites into tags and font sets (one set per client works beautifully). Missing-font activation reaches InDesign, After Effects and Sketch too.
Finding the right window
6. Canopy CMD: every window, by sight
The last gap is the simplest: getting back to the window you need. ⌘ Tab shows one icon per app, and Photoshop keeps its open documents inside one app window, so the file you want is often a few steps away.
Hold ⌥ Tab and Canopy shows every window from Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, Finder, your browsers and the other apps in its roster as a live preview, grouped by app and labeled with its page title, file name or folder. Every open Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign document gets its own card. Type a few letters to filter, release to switch. Workgroups keep one client's windows together, so picking the group brings the whole project forward. This one is ours.
Getting-started tip: hold ⌥ Tab and type a few letters of a client's name. Browser pages, folders and documents with that name in their title, URL, file name or folder line up together. Our guide to switching between Photoshop documents has more.
How they fit together
| The snag | The fix |
|---|---|
| Can't find the right window | Canopy CMD |
| Exports land in the wrong folder | Default Folder X |
| Dragging between buried windows | Dropover |
| Files are too heavy | Clop |
| The build doesn't match the design | xScope |
| Fonts go missing | RightFont |
Think of it as one loop with fewer snags. Canopy gets you to the window. Default Folder X gets the file into the right folder. Dropover carries it between apps. Clop keeps it light. xScope checks it against the design. RightFont makes sure the type looks the same everywhere.
Try this: fix one snag a week
- Monday: notice. Keep a sticky note by your keyboard and make a tally mark every time you hunt for a file, a window or a font.
- Tuesday: pick the winner. Whichever snag got the most marks gets fixed first.
- Wednesday: set up one app. Just the one. Ten minutes in its settings, max!
- Thursday and Friday: work normally. Let the tool prove itself on real projects.
- Next week: repeat. Add the next app only if you still feel the next snag.
When you can skip these
Plenty of designers only need one or two of these, and some need none. If you work mostly inside one app all day, many of these gaps simply don't exist for you. And if your team already has a shared font system or an export pipeline, lean on that first. It's already doing the job.
You don't need all six at once. Start with the one that fixes the snag you hit most often this week, and add the next only when you notice you miss it.
Quick answers
Which one should I start with?
Whichever snag you hit most. If you're not sure, the Monday tally above will tell you in a single day. Really!
Do any of these help with Figma?
Yes! RightFont's Figma plugin finds and activates missing fonts, xScope measures whatever is on screen, and Canopy shows Figma windows as labeled previews alongside your browsers and Finder.
Do these work with Photoshop and Illustrator?
They do. Default Folder X works in every app's Open and Save dialogs, RightFont can notice missing fonts when you open a document in Photoshop or Illustrator, and Canopy gives every open Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign document its own card.
