It’s been 2 years that I have been using Macintosh now, and I find it better and more consolidated than Windows. It was a little difficult to use it in the start, but now I am more comfortable than I was with Windows. There are many great apps from Apple and other third-party developers, that make it the best OS, and most of them don’t even have a Windows alternative.
Giveaway of the Day is the most popular website to get the paid software free for 10+ years now. It highlights multiple programs on its front page including Windows software, Android & iPhone apps. Every 24 hours, a new commercial software is offered for free. The application name, a short description and the time remaining are displayed.
- 7 Best Weather Apps For Mac In 2020 (Free & Paid) Akanksha Soni, 2020-04-26. 0 11 min read. Mac software Top 10. I like to keep myself updated with weather.
- In a previous article where I talked about the 5 best cheap Mac apps under $10, it seems that many of you wanted to know if these apps had any free alternatives.The straight answer is yes, but it is a little bit more complicated than that. As a rule of thumb, you should know that for every paid Mac app, there is a corresponding free app out there.
- Following is a handpicked list of Best Mac Apps with their popular features and website links. The list contains both open source (free) and commercial (paid) software. 1) Amphetamine. Amphetamine is awake app for Mac that can prevent your mac from locking or sleeping with one mouse click.
- In researching the best free apps for the Mac, I started by using Apple's category list. This makes it easier to cover the wide variety of content available. If an app is on the Mac App Store, it is in one of the 21 categories that Apple has listed.
In this article I have covered the 21 best apps for Mac OS. If you have any other app which you would like to be included in this list, do let us know in the comments.
1. VLC(Free)
VLC is the best media player for playing video files and is available both for Windows and Macintosh operating system. I have nothing against QuickTime, but its limited support for formats make me choose VLC over it. Moreover, VLC can download subtitles too.2. Google Chrome (Free)
Available for almost every platform, Google Chrome is the browser of my choice. The stock browser, Apple Safari, is good if you want to use the same on all your devices (provided an app for them exists), or you don’t want cross-synching of your bookmarks, passwords and the sites you visit. Since I use many devices for surfing the web, I love the Chrome’s sync functionality, and hundreds of extensions built for it.3. Apple Safari (Free)
I am a huge fan of Chrome since its launch. But after buying Macbook I had to switch to Safari. The reason was the slow responsiveness of Chrome on my Macbook and it also proved to be a battery hog. As a result, I was on a lookout to find a better browser, and Safari came out with flying colours. It is fast, responsive and makes my laptop stay awake for long, much longer when compared to Chrome. There are certainly many features and extensions you will miss, but if you are a normal laptop user, you will have a better experience. You can follow our guide on syncing your bookmarks across browsers, incase you plan to use both Safari and Chrome. Apple Safari comes bundled with Mac.4. Caffeine(Free)
A very simple and small utility that keeps your Mac awake. Caffeine adds a little icon in the menu bar, that when activated, prevents your Mac from sleeping or dimming the screen. This application is helpful when you are downloading something from the internet or updating your Mac. This app is also useful when you are doing some work that needs a lot of thinking and your Mac keeps on dimming the screen.5. Evernote(Free)
The Notes app that ships with the Macintosh, is not built for today’s world. It lacks many useful features that the other third party apps provide. Also, it is available only on Apple devices. You can use the web interface to open notes on any device, but there is no native apps for non Mac platforms.From all the notes taking app available for Mac, Evernote is the best one. Evernote lets you combine multiple notes together into a Notebook and you can ever tag your notes. All the notes are synced to the cloud, and you can view and edit your notes from the cloud. One more advantage of using Evernote for note taking is that it has official apps for most of the deviced and operating systems. Moreover, there are many good unofficial apps that utilize Evernote’s cloud capabilities, and provide a lot of different features.6. Simplenote(Free)
If Evernote is too heavy for you and you want a slimmer version of it, then you can use Simplenote. It is a simple note taking app available for iOS, Android, Mac and Windows (with Pokki). It also has a web version for devices that don’t have native app available.Simplenote is a great note taking application with a powerful search. You can search for any word/phrase within your notes to find that note. Moreover, you can also tag your notes to organise them in a better way.7. f.lux(Free)
f.lux is for all those people who have to work on their Mac machines late at night, or in dim or no light. During these times, the screen of your Mac may appear very bright and can cause huge damage to your eyes. f.lux is a free app available both for Windows and Mac, that adjusts the colours of the screen according to the time of the day. It takes your location into account and makes the colours warmer at night and brighter during the day. It is a must have app for all those people who use their system in low light ambience.8. NameChanger(Free)
The application does exactly what the name says, it changes the file names, but not like the usual file name of individual files.NameChanger changes the file name of multiple files in bulk, like adding a string to thousands of image files can be done in a matter of seconds. The application also shows you live preview of what the file names will be, and that too as soon as you type.9. AppCleaner(Free)
Most people will tell you that you can uninstall apps from your Mac device by just deleting them from the applications folder. This method is acceptable upto a certain limit, but you must not resort to it if you regularly uninstall and delete apps.This is because the applications you install creates files and folders outside the Applications folder also. And deleting the app from the Applications folder will delete only the files in that folder and leaves the other files.AppCleaner lists all the applications on your Macintosh, and lets you choose the once you want to uninstall. After you choose the apps, it searches for all the files that the selected apps have created, and then deletes all of them. Doing this leaves no unnecessary files on your Mac device and you get all the used space back.10. Time Machine(Free)
Time Machine is really a very impressive app built into Macintosh. There is no app for Windows that comes closer to Time Machine for taking backups, neither from Microsoft, nor from any third-party developer. If you want to keep a backup of all your data and your Mac OS, then just enable Time Machine, and it will take care of the rest. You can even change the Time Machine backup schedule if you want.Having your Mac backed up with Time Machine also saves you from having a paid subscription of any cloud storage. Cloud storage services are much more secure and you don’t have to buy and keep any hardware for that, but if you can protect your backup drive, then there is no reason I can think of it being insecure. If you still want to use cloud storage for your backups, then CrashPlan is your best bet.11. Pocket(Free)
Pocket is a free application that can download webpages on your Mac device and saves them for offline reading. It also removes the formatting of the web pages and displays them in a very easy to read format. The app is available for all the major platforms except windows, a Chrome app can be used though.12. RAR Extractor Free (Free)
RAR Extractor Free is a free application that can extract ZIP, RAR, Tar and files with various other formats. The reason why I love this app is because it automatically extracts the contents of the file when you double-click on any archive with supported format. What’s more, it can automatically delete the archive once extracted, and can also open the folder containing the extracted files.In short, this app can extract all the files into a folder with the same name of the archive, delete the archive to save disk space, and can also open the folder containing the extracted files if you specify it in the settings.You also have the flexibility to specify the location where you want the files to be extracted, on desktop, or at some other location.13. Lightshot Screenshot(Free)
It is the lightest screen capturing application on Mac OS. Very simple and with not too many options, the application is perfect for taking screenshots of anything on your computer screen.This app is not for taking professional screenshots. It is the most basic app that just takes the screenshot of your Macintosh device’s screen.14. AntiRSI($6)
If you work on the system for long hours, AntiRSI is a must have app for you. According to doctors, you must take regular breaks after every 20 minutes or so while sitting in front of the system. AntiRSI blocks the input devices after every 15 minutes (customizable) for 20 seconds (customizable). During this time, you can look away from the screen and save your eyes from the negative effects of using computer devices for long durations.If you use your laptop continuously for a long duration, then your eyes are likely to get affected with the prolonged use. According to doctors, you can prevent this by taking regular breaks after every 20 seconds or so. This prevents your eyes from the bad effects that are associated with continuous use of laptops.AntiRSI is an application which reminds you to take breaks after a set interval. You can customise both the work and break interval duration. Not just this, AntiRSI can also block your input devices, which forces you to leave your Mac and take the rest break.Taking a 20 seconds break after every 20 minutes of laptop/computer use is advised by doctors to keep your eyes in good shape.15. Koala(Free)
For CSS developer, LESS and SASS are life savers. But, there are not many good applications to convert LESS and SASS files to CSS. Koala is a great application that comes to the rescue, and is also very lenient on resources.16. Airmail 2.1($9.99)
If you are struggling to put the mail application to work, then suffer no more. The mail application is very different from what an application form Apple is, it is slow, not polished, and lacks many features that third-party apps have. The best app for managing emails on a Mac is Airmail, which includes tons of great features.Some Great Features of Airmail
- You can configure Airmail to open links in the background, this allows you to continue checking your other emails. This way, you can check all the opened links later.
- You can set up as many accounts as you want, and from any email service provider.
- Airmail can fetch all your emails for as far back as your want.
- Airmail can even download all the attachments to the downloads folders if you want.
17. Hazel($29)
Hazel is a life saver for those who download tons of files from the internet, or keep all the files scattered here and there. Hazel adds a preference pane in the settings menu, and lets you define rules. Based on your rules, Hazel can move, copy, archive and perform many other function on the matching files, and arrange your files for you.You can define as many rules as you want, and set as many watch folders as you like. Hazel can:- Move files
- Copy files
- Upload files to a set server
- Archive files
- Rename files
- Add Tags
- And many more
These are some of the rules you can define to match the files:- By name
- By size
- By extension
- By date created
- By date modified
- By tags
- And many more
Hazel helps in keeping my Mac organised, and I can always find my files easily, because I already know what Hazel has done with my files, and where they are.18. Alfred(Free, $19 – Powerpack)
Spotlight is getting better and better with every new release of Macintosh operating System. But third-party apps like Alfred still lead the game by a long distance.Features of Alfred
- Set any key combination to open Alfred search box.
- You can define the scope of Alfred search. This gives you the ability to tell Alfred what and where to search.
- You can search and view contacts inside Alfred.
- Alfred shows you the definition of words by just prefixing the search term with the word ‘define’. You can even customise the prefix string.
- Customize the search box with any built-in theme you like.
- You can even control your Mac from the Alfred search box itself. Alfred allows you to do the following.
- Hide and quit apps. You can even quit all the open apps.
- Sleep, shutdown and restart your Mac from the Alfred search box.
- Open or empty trash.
- Run the screen saver.
- Run shell commands from the Alfred search box.
- And many more.
19. Bartender($15)
The menu bar at the top of Mac fills up very fast, and slowly and slowly some icons get hidden from the menu bar. Don’t know why Mac lacks a notification area like feature, which has been a part of Windows since many years. But, if you want to tidy up your Mac menu bar, Bartender is the app for you. It can do the following:- Hide apps from the menu bar and show it in a sub-menu. This keeps your menu bar clean and tidy. You can choose which apps it hides and which exhibit their default behaviour.
- You can also define apps that will be displayed in the menu bar only when they update, else they will stay hidden.
- You can choose the Bitdefender icon from the menu icons that Bartender ships with.
- You can even hide the Bartender icon from the menu bar completely, you can then show/hide the Bartender icon using the keyboard shortcut.
- Bartender allows you to reposition your menu bar items, both in the menu bar and the Bartender menu.
You can also grab a free copy of Bartender for a trial of 4 weeks.20. Readkit($10)
This is the application I can’t live without. Being a blogger, I follow many (a few hundred) blogs and keeping up with all of them was much of a struggle on Windows.There were RSS feeds reader applications on Windows too, but Readkit is quite different. It lets you export articles to Pocket, Instapaper and many other applications too. Readkit seamlessly integrates with Pocket and you can read all your saved articles on Pocket, within Readkit itself. It also plays well with Feedly and you can follow any number of blogs from one place.21. iA Writer Pro($20)
If you are a blogger, an author or anyone who has to or loves to write, then you will love iA Writer Pro for sure. The application supports markdown language and all the HTML tags. You can see a live preview as you type and you can also export all your writings in HTML (.html), Rich Text Format (.rtf) or Microsoft Word (.docx) format.iA writer Pro also has a focus mode, which highlights the line you are currently editing, and lightens all others. This saves you from searching for the line you were currently editing, at times when you take your eyes off the screen.Some Great Features of iA Writer Pro
- Supports Markdown: iA Writer Pro also lets you convert documents to HTML format, or copy the HTML code for any file.
- It has a distraction free mode. This mode opens the app in the full screen mode and keeps all the distractions away, so that you can focus on the things that matter.
- Focus mode allows you to focus on the sentence you are currently writing. It has various other modes, which I didn’t found any good use of.
- There are many keyboard shortcuts included in the application. Making text bold, italic, giving heading tags, starting ordered and unordered lists can also be done with a single key combination.
- Utilises the power of iCloud to save your documents.
Great apps for your Mac. Right there on your Mac.
The Mac App Store makes it easy to find and download Mac apps as well as widgets and extensions — like editing extensions for the new Photos app. You can browse Mac apps by category, such as games, productivity, music and more. Or do a quick search for something specific. Read descriptions and customer reviews. Flip through screenshots. When you find an app you like, click to buy it. The Mac App Store has apps for just about everything and everyone. Here are a few of our favourites.
Pages
Create beautiful documents, letters, flyers, invitations and more.
View in Mac App Store
View in Mac App Store
Numbers
Make eye-catching spreadsheets and charts in just a few clicks.
View in Mac App Store
View in Mac App Store
Keynote
Put together a presentation with captivating graphics and transitions.
View in Mac App Store
View in Mac App Store
iBooks Author
Create stunning Multi-Touch books for iPad and Mac.
View in Mac App Store
View in Mac App Store
Final Cut Pro X
Bring your film to life using revolutionary video editing software.
View in Mac App Store
View in Mac App Store
Logic Pro X
Turn your Mac into a complete professional recording studio.
View in Mac App Store
View in Mac App Store
Wunderlist
Manage and share your to‑do lists across all your devices. View in Mac App Store
Evernote
Take notes, save web pages, create lists, attach images and PDFs, and more. View in Mac App Store
Cobook Contacts
Find, organise and keep your contacts up to date in even easier ways. View in Mac App Store
Things
Keep track of to-dos, deadlines and projects with this task manager app. View in Mac App Store
Notability
Annotate documents, record lectures and take notes with this all-in-one app. View in Mac App Store
Autodesk SketchBook
Take your ideas further with a complete set of digital drawing tools.View in Mac App Store
Day One
Keep a journal that sends reminders and looks great in day or month view. View in Mac App Store
Pocket
See something you like? Save interesting articles, videos and web pages for later. View in Mac App Store
The Photo Cookbook
Follow over 240 easy‑to‑prepare recipes picture by picture. View in Mac App Store
Kuvva Wallpapers
Choose specially curated wallpapers from a new artist each week. View in Mac App Store
Tonality
Create inspiring black-and-white images on your Mac.View in Mac App Store
swackett
Get visual weather reports that turn complex data into fun infographics. View in Mac App Store
Sky Gamblers Cold War
Rule the action-packed skies in over a dozen different aeroplanes. View in Mac App Store
Sparkle 2
This easy-to-play but enthralling game makes the most of the Retina display. View in Mac App Store
Bike Baron
Beat hundreds of challenges as you master over 100 different bike tracks. View in Mac App Store
Civilization V: Campaign Edition
Build and defend the most powerful empire the world has ever known. View in Mac App Store
Galaxy On Fire 2™ Full HD
Battle your way through a 3D war-torn galaxy against an alien armada. View in Mac App Store
SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition
Build a city from the ground up and manage your metropolis in every way. View in Mac App Store
Money
Free Paid Mac Apps
Set a budget, schedule payments and track investments — all in one app. View in Mac App Store
MoneyWiz – Personal Finance
View all your accounts, transactions, budgets and bills in one secure place. View in Mac App Store
Manage your money with this fully featured, intuitive personal finance app. View in Mac App Store
Next - Track your expenses and finances
See your expenses by year, month or day, and take control of your finances. View in Mac App Store
Investoscope
Monitor your portfolio of stocks, bonds, mutual funds and more. View in Mac App Store
StockTouch
Keep track of the market in a whole new way. View in Mac App Store
djay
Mix songs from your iTunes library and spin live on a digital turntable. View in Mac App Store
Sound Studio
Record, edit and produce digital audio. Create your own mixes and add effects. View in Mac App Store
Shazam
Like what you hear? Identify a song at a moment’s notice. Then share it or buy it. View in Mac App Store
Tabular
Read and write tablature notation for guitar, bass, drums and more. View in Mac App Store
AmpKit
Turn your Mac into a powerful guitar amp and effects studio. View in Mac App Store
Sound Forge 2
Record, edit, process and render high-resolution audio files. View in Mac App Store
Install any app with ease.
The Mac App Store revolutionises the way apps are installed on a computer — it happens in one step. Enter the same iTunes password you use to buy apps and music on your iPhone, iPad, Mac or iPod touch. Within seconds, your new app flies to Launchpad, ready to go. So you can spend more time enjoying new apps and less time installing them.
Keep your apps up to date.
Download Paid Android Apps Free
Since developers are constantly improving their apps, the Mac App Store keeps track of your apps and tells you when an update is available — including OS X software updates. Update one app at a time or all of them at once, for free. You can even have your apps and OS X update automatically, so you’ll always have the latest version of every app you own.
The app you need. When you need it.
Can’t open a file you’ve downloaded or received in an email? OS X can search the Mac App Store to find the app that can open the file. Buy what you need instantly and get back to business.
Buy, download and even re-download.
You can install apps on every Mac authorised for your personal use, and even download them again. This is especially convenient when you buy a new Mac and want to load it with apps you already own.