Who is Brandon Butch?
Half a million YouTube subscribers watching him test every productivity app that launches. Brandon Butch reviews software like people review restaurants, and his audience trusts him because he actually uses the stuff for weeks before filming anything.
Started the channel around 2018 focusing on Apple ecosystem productivity. iPhone shortcuts, Mac workflows, iPad setups. The content evolved into full app deep-dives as the productivity software space exploded with new launches every week.
What sets Brandon apart is the honesty. He'll torch an app if it sucks even when they're paying for the video. That happened with a task manager sponsor in 2023, the brand got pissed, but subscribers loved it because they knew the reviews were real.
As of late 2024, he's publishing almost daily. Mix of quick app reviews, longer workflow tutorials, and gear roundups. The production quality is clean without being overproduced, exactly what you'd expect from someone who lives in Final Cut Pro.
Everything below comes from videos where he's walked through his actual setup. Fair warning: this stack is Mac-heavy. If you're on Windows, maybe 3 of these will translate over.
Staying Focused Without Burning Out
YouTube creators burn out fast when they're staring at screens 12 hours daily. Brandon uses Lookaway to force breaks every 20 minutes. Not suggestions. Not reminders. Full screen locks until you actually look away from the Mac.
He hated it at first. Mentioned in a video from early 2024 that he almost deleted it after day one. But the afternoon headaches stopped completely after about two weeks of forced breaks during editing marathons.
Rize tracks where the time actually goes. Editing gets logged separately from research, emails, admin work. The weekly reports are kind of depressing honestly. You think you worked 8 productive hours but Rize says it was more like 4.5 with the rest on Twitter and Slack.
Brandon shared his Rize dashboard in a September 2024 video. About 35 hours weekly in Final Cut, 8 hours researching apps, 6 hours on email and admin stuff. The data forced him to block dedicated time for filming instead of squeezing it between everything else.
Tools for Daily Video Production
CleanShot X handles every screenshot and screen recording. Thumbnail assets, tutorial clips, app feature highlights. The annotation tools are clutch when showing specific UI elements in videos. One hotkey captures, annotates, and saves to the right folder automatically.
Before CleanShot, he used the native Mac screenshot tool. Took three times as long and looked amateur compared to the polished overlays CleanShot generates. Worth every penny of the one-time license fee.
Bartender keeps the menu bar clean during recordings. Nothing worse than filming a polished tutorial then realizing every app icon is visible across the top. Bartender hides everything except the essentials so screen recordings look professional from the jump.
iStat Menus monitors system performance during 4K exports. CPU and RAM usage visible in the menu bar. Prevents those nightmare crashes where Final Cut freezes 90 percent through a 2-hour render because something spiked in the background.
Automation That Actually Saves Time
Hazel auto-organizes project files and downloads. Video footage gets moved to the right folder based on filename patterns. Screenshots get renamed and sorted. Old renders delete automatically after 30 days. Probably saves 15-20 minutes daily of file management nonsense.
He set up the Hazel rules once in 2022 and they've been running silently ever since. Total set-and-forget automation that compounds over time when you're generating gigabytes of footage weekly.
Alfred runs custom workflows for repetitive YouTube tasks. One hotkey generates video description templates with all the standard links. Another pulls stock footage file paths. Another opens Final Cut with the current project loaded. Saved workflows probably reclaim an hour every week.
BetterTouchTool maps custom trackpad gestures to Final Cut shortcuts. Three-finger swipe opens the timeline. Four-finger tap splits clips at playhead. Two-finger rotate adjusts clip speed. The learning curve took about two weeks but now editing is way faster with gestures than keyboard shortcuts.
Managing the Content Pipeline
Notion runs the entire video pipeline. Database tracks every upload from initial idea to published. Columns for script status, filming date, sponsor details, thumbnail progress, SEO tags, publish date. Everything visible on one Kanban board.
Before Notion, he tried Trello and Asana. Both felt too rigid for the chaotic reality of YouTube content creation where ideas shift constantly and priorities change hourly. Notion's flexibility lets him reshape the system without breaking everything.
The sponsor database is separate. Tracks every brand partnership, contract details, talking points, payment status, renewal dates. When a sponsor emails about another video, all the context is right there instead of buried in email threads from six months ago.
Fantastical handles all the scheduling. Natural language input for filming blocks and sponsor calls. Type 'film productivity app review tomorrow at 10am' and it parses instantly. Calendar sets sync everywhere so double-booking becomes basically impossible.
Frequently Asked Questions About Brandon Butch's Stack
What productivity apps does Brandon Butch use?
His daily stack includes Raycast for app launching, Notion for video pipeline management, Fantastical for scheduling, and Arc Browser for research. The automation layer runs on Hazel for file management and Alfred for custom YouTube workflows. Pretty Mac-heavy overall. If you're on Windows, maybe CleanShot and Notion will translate but the rest won't.
What tools does Brandon Butch use for video editing?
Final Cut Pro handles all the editing. CleanShot X grabs screenshots and screen recordings for tutorials. Bartender hides menu bar clutter during screen captures. iStat Menus monitors system resources so exports don't crash mid-render. The editing shortcuts run through BetterTouchTool with custom trackpad gestures that speed everything up once you learn them.
How does Brandon Butch organize his YouTube content?
Everything lives in Notion. One big database tracking each video from idea to published. Columns for script status, sponsor details, thumbnail progress, filming dates. Separate databases for sponsor relationships and gear recommendations. Before Notion he bounced between Trello and Asana but both felt too rigid for how chaotic YouTube content planning actually gets.
What automation tools does Brandon Butch recommend?
Hazel for automatic file organization. Alfred for custom YouTube workflows. BetterTouchTool for trackpad gesture shortcuts in Final Cut. These three probably save him an hour daily on repetitive tasks. The setup time is annoying but once the rules and workflows are configured they just run silently in the background forever.
What browser does Brandon Butch use?
Switched from Chrome to Arc Browser in late 2023. The Spaces feature keeps research tabs separate from sponsor emails separate from personal stuff. When you're juggling 40 tabs for a single video script, the sidebar organization just makes way more sense than traditional tab bars stretching across the top.
How does Brandon Butch prevent burnout from screen time?
Lookaway forces screen breaks every 20 minutes by completely locking the Mac. Super annoying at first but the afternoon headaches stopped after about two weeks of consistent use. Rize tracks actual productive time versus distraction time. The weekly reports are brutal but honest about where the day really goes instead of where you think it went.