The Week in Mac Apps: Keep your desktop icons hidden from prying eyes with Desktop Ghost Pro

This week’s roundup of Mac apps includes Desktop Ghost Pro, a tool that leaves your desktop looking squeaky-clean with a simple keyboard command. Plus, apps that promote good working habits, contact managers, app launchers, and more. Read on!

Mapdiva’s $30 Artboard 2 ( Mac App Store Link) provides a full set of drawing tools for creating icons, illustrations, and logos using vector graphics.

The app includes editors for different shapes, pencils, and brushes, and provides a comprehensive library of clipart for all kinds of projects. It also comes with pre-defined templates for business cards, posters, and social media-ready graphics.

Stahl Labs’ $1 Awa launches your favorite Mac apps by responding to voice commands. In addition to starting apps, Awa’s A.I. assistant can access most of your Mac’s features to perform web searches, take notes, and even find places on a map. Siri has some slight competition. 

Feel an irresistible need to put your thoughts on paper? Bloom Built’s $30 Day One ( Mac App Store Link) lets you create beautiful journals where you can record your memories.

The app sports a friendly user interface, and allows you to customize your journal entries with with rich text, pictures, and even metadata like location and weather. Day One syncs across devices and can export your entries as PDFs for easy sharing with friends and family.

Writes for All’s $4 Desktop Ghost Pro ( Mac App Store Link) is a tool that hides all your desktop icons simultaneously. The app is extremely simple—specializing in quickly revealing and hiding your icons—and it can be set to work as a menu accessory. You could also trigger it through a handy global keyboard shortcut.

FullContact ( Mac App Store Link) gives you complete control over your address books, regardless of where they are stored.

The app organizes your existing contacts by merging duplicates and synchronizing important information like photos, addresses, and social media profiles, and it keeps everything up to date across every service you use. FullContact is compatible with iCloud, Google, and Microsoft Exchange calendars.

Epic Pixie’s $2 Get Moving is a simple timer that promotes healthy habits by reminding you to stand up at least once per hour.

Alongside the reminder, the app shows a handy countdown clock to gently remind you when it’s time to get back to work, and keeps a seven day history of your activity so that you can track your standing patterns over time.

Sascha Holesch’s Never Read ( Mac App Store Link) cleans up your Internet clutter by deleting saved, but unread, articles from your Pocket account after a certain amount of time.

The app lets you decide the number of days after which an article should no longer be considered relevant, and then it mercilessly removes it from your reading queue.

To make your busy day a little easier to handle, Adrian Wisaksana’s Queue organizes all your tasks in priority order to make sure you never miss an important appointment or to-do item.

Always readily available from the menu bar, the app supports due dates and categories, supports a customizable keyboard shortcut, and integrates with your iCloud calendars and reminders for up-to-date information.

Another app is jumping on the “sitting is bad for you” trend. Daniel Storm’s $2 UP ( Mac App Store Link) helps you remember to periodically stand up when sitting in front of your Mac for prolonged periods of time.

The app sports a cute animated icon that alerts you when it’s time to take a break, can optionally play an alarm sound to catch your attention, and features customizable reminder messages. UP also offers a number of suggestions designed to keep you healthy during the day, and integrates with Notification Center for maximum convenience.