by

30 Free Macos Apps Every Mac User Should Have

May 27, 2020 There is a rich library of the best Mac apps to compare to the best Windows apps.That’s especially true now that we have access to key iOs apps that have been ported over with macOS Mojave.

Did you just pick up a shiny new 13-inch MacBook Pro? Or even a 16-inch MacBook Pro, maybe a MacBook Air, perhaps an iMac? No matter your Mac of choice, there are some Mac apps out there that are just so good that they should be one of the first apps that you download and install on your new machine right away! Here are our favorites.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud storage service that lets you easily backup important documents, files, photos, video, and other things. While your stuff is stored in Dropbox, you can access it across any other device, as long as you're logged in to the same account. Any changes to your files get saved automatically, though you can also check older versions on the web interface if needed. Everything you upload into Dropbox is encrypted, and there are also collaborative features that make it easy to share files with others. One thing I absolutely love about Dropbox is how it integrates with pretty much any other app I need, so my stuff is accessible from anywhere and in anything.

Should

A free account gives you 2GB for free (and the chance to get more space with referrals), but they have plans that start at around $11.99 for 2TB.

Dropbox

Online backup for all of your files, with integrations in almost every app.

Source: iMore

I'm on Twitter pretty much all day, every day. My app of choice is Tweetbot from Tapbots. The reason I use Tweetbot over every other Twitter app is because I love the interface, as it's easy to use, and it provides plenty of powerful features. You can quickly search for topics that interest you, filter and mute hashtags and people that are annoying you temporarily (or permanently, it's up to you), create lists, and there is support for a multi-column view. I've been using Tweetbot on my iOS and Mac devices for years — there's no other app that I would rather use. Plus, you don't see promoted ad tweets.

Tweetbot

Tweetbot has plenty of powerful features that make it the best Twitter app on Mac.

Source: iMore

While I use Safari as my default browser on my Mac, it's always good to have an alternative, especially since some things don't always work properly in Safari. For my alternative, I use Google Chrome. It syncs with your Google account, has numerous plugins and extensions to enhance the browser experience, and it works better with certain Google apps than Safari, like Meet.

Google Chrome

Chrome is a great alternative browser that syncs with your Google account and has a ton of plugins and extensions.

Source: iMore

I have a lot going on daily, so my schedule gets really hectic at times. That's why I need a calendar, and I continue to use Fantastical on my Mac. Fantastical has a beautiful interface that is easy to use, and you have several different views on how to look at your calendar. It integrates with your iCloud, Google, Exchange, or even local calendar, so any changes are saved and sync automatically. The agenda list view is a great way to see what's coming up in your schedule, and it's easy to create events with the natural language input support. Fantastical also integrates with Reminders, so you have your calendar and tasks in one place.

Fantastical

Fantastical provides a beautiful interface for your schedule, and natural language input makes it easy to schedule events and reminders.

Source: iMore

One of the most important things you can do to protect yourself online is to have secure passwords. For this, you're going to want a good password manager, which can track your passwords and other sensitive data, while also helping you generate randomized passwords to use. With 1Password, you can create different vaults for personal and work accounts (or whatever else you need), sync your data across multiple devices (it's available on everything), and even store things like bank info, credit card numbers, and other things that need extra security. 1Password encrypts everything so that it's safe, and you can't even get in without a master password. I've been using 1Password for years, and it's one app that I cannot live without.

1Password

Generate safe and secure randomized passwords, track all of your passwords and other sensitive data, and sync everything on all of your devices.

Source: iMore

Need to do a bit of hard drive cleanup? DaisyDisk is a must have. This app lets you easily see what is cluttering up your hard drive thanks to bright and colorful blocks, so you can see what's taking up the most space. You can delete stuff directly from DaisyDisk to free up space, and it's all done in an intuitive interface that's a joy to use. Decluttering has never been prettier.

DaisyDisk

DaisyDisk lets you easily visualize what's on your hard drive, and you can delete useless files directly through DaisyDisk's intuitive drag-and-drop interface.

Source: iMore

Once you start installing a lot of apps, you may find your Menubar cluttered with a bunch of icons. Bartender is an app that helps you tidy up that Menubar by tucking away unwanted icons into a kind of sub-Menubar. With Bartender, you can choose to rearrange your icons into an order that makes more sense to you, as well as choosing what is shown in the main Menubar, and what to hide in a secondary Menubar. Or, you can hide some items completely, because they're unnecessary — it's up to you.

Bartender

Tidy up your Menubar by rearranging and hiding app's Menubar icons as you see fit.

Source: iMore

The Spotlight Search in macOS is alright, but you can do so much more with Alfred. Alfred is essentially Spotlight on steroids. You can do your basic search functionality, but you can also create workflows to make your life easier, access your clipboard history at anytime, view contact info, have app integrations, text expansion, search the web, and more.

Alfred 4

30 Free Macos Apps Every Mac User Should Have

Boost your productivity like never before with Alfred and it's many magical wonders with the keyboard.

Source: Pixelmator Team

Whether you're an amateur or professional, you may end up having to do some photo editing at some point. Pixelmator Pro is one of our favorite apps to get the job done. It's a powerful photo editor that will have all of the tools you need, but it's intuitive and easy to use, unlike Photoshop, which some may find intimidating. With Pixelmator Pro, you have many professional and non-destructive editing tools, allowing you to bring the best out of your photographs. And the image editing is enhanced by Pixelmator's machine learning, so you get the absolute best looking photos with ease. Plus, the price is reasonable and affordable.

Pixelmator Pro

Pixelmator Pro brings professional-grade tools in a simple and easy-to-use interface for everyone.

Source: Bare Bones Software, Inc.

If you're looking for a professional text, code, and markup editor, then you should download BBEdit. It's used often by web application developers, writers, and software developers who need powerful tools for editing, searching, and manipulation of text, code, and HTML/XML markup. Some features of BBEdit include grep pattern matching, search and replace across multiple files, project definition tools, function navigation and syntax coloring for a wide variety of source code languages, code folding, and more.

Unsure if BBEdit is what you're looking for? The app has a 30-day trial for you to put the app through its paces, and then you can decide whether or not to purchase the full package, which has even more advanced features. But you can continue to use the free version of BBEdit too.

BBEdit

BBEdit is one of the best go-to apps out there for text, code, and markup editing.

What are your favorite apps?

These are just a few of our favorite must-have apps for a new Mac. Do you have any recommendations of your own? Let us know in the comments!

We may earn a commission for purchases using our links. Learn more.

education

Apple announces new initiative with HBCUs to boost coding and creativity

Apple has today announced expanded partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities to boost coding and creativity opportunities.

30 Free Macos Apps Every Mac User Should Have One

Your Mac is already pretty powerful out of the box, but you can do even more with it using third-party apps and utilities.

We pulled together the best Mac apps and utilities to let you organize windows with a gesture, automate file management, eliminate ads from your web browser, and more.

Take a look below!

Contents

  • 12 Wipr: Eliminate ads, trackers, and cookies from the web

Related:

Paste: Keep countless items in your clipboard

You might not have noticed, but your Mac is incredibly limited in its copy-paste ability. You can only hold one item in your clipboard at a time, which often isn’t enough.

Enter Paste. This utility lets you save countless items to the copy-paste clipboard. Keep them organized in pinboards, sync over iCloud, and access all of it using simple keyboard commands.

Download:Paste ($14.99 with a 14-day free trial)

Pro-Tip:BundleHunt is currently offering the Holiday Mac app bundle at $2 a month. This Holiday offering has a list of legitimate 42 macOS apps that you can use. These Apps have been tested for macOS Catalina. When you use our link at BundleHunt, we get a small commission.

Keyboard Maestro: Automate anything with key commands

You can already automate tasks on your Mac using Automator. But Keyboard Maestro earns its price tag with a lot of extra features and easy usability.

Here are some of our favorite things you can do with Keyboard Maestro:

  • Launch all the apps you need to start working at once.
  • Quit background apps you haven’t used in a while.
  • Arrange app windows exactly how you like them.
  • Manipulate text and images to generate stock documents.

Magnet: Organize your windows however you want

Magnet has been a longtime favorite for many Mac users. Use keyboard commands to snap your windows into different configurations on your display.

Apps that read powerpoint machine. Mar 26, 2014  ‎Read reviews, compare customer ratings, see screenshots, and learn more about Microsoft PowerPoint. Download Microsoft PowerPoint and enjoy it on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. ‎The PowerPoint app gives you access to the familiar slideshow maker tool you already know. Read next: How to edit PDFs on Mac for free Stay your angst though, as Apple won't be overcome by the wrong letters at the end of a filename. So here are the easiest ways to edit a.pptx file on a. Jan 25, 2019  Download Microsoft PowerPoint for macOS 10.13 or later and enjoy it on your Mac. ‎This application requires a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription. Microsoft 365 includes premium Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps, 1 TB cloud storage in OneDrive, advanced security, and more, all in one convenient subscription.

It’s far more flexible than the rudimentary split-screen function in macOS. With Magnet, you can place an app in each of the four corners, create multiple columns across the screen, or organize windows above and below each other.

Download:Magnet ($1.99)

Swish: Use touch gestures to organize your windows

Swish is a new take on Magnet’s window management. Now you can reorganize your apps with a swish of the fingers.

Use intuitive touch gestures on your trackpad or Magic Mouse to snap app windows into different positions on your display. You can even use Swish to minimize apps when you’re finished using them.

BetterTouchTool: More gestures for your mouse or trackpad

Mac gestures are already pretty great, but with BetterTouchTool they’re out of this world. This is the best Mac utility to unlock advanced gestures on your trackpad, Magic Mouse, Touch Bar, Siri Remote, and more.

You can add custom gestures for a range of different Mac functions: adjust volume and brightness, cycle through browser tabs, capture screenshots, and more.

Hazel: Keep your files in order with automated actions

Hazel automates file management on your Mac, with a huge range of options. By default, Hazel applies color-coding to your Downloads folder and sends Movies, Music, or Pictures to the relevant folders on your Mac.

But you can create your own rules to do much more:

  • Automatically compress and archive old files.
  • Rename and relocate important downloads.
  • Or clean up your desktop into filetype subfolders.

Alfred 4: Enter a new world of productivity

At first glance, Alfred looks like another version of Spotlight. Use the search bar to find files, search the web, or open apps on your Mac. But there’s far more to it than that, especially if with the PowerPack upgrade.

With the full version of Alfred, you get a clipboard manager, easy automation, remote control for your Mac, text expansion, and more. It makes a lot of the other apps on this list redundant!

30 Free Macos Apps Every Mac User Should Have Free

Download:Alfred 4 (Free, with Pro version available)

iStat Menus 6: Get more information about your Mac

Whether gaming, video editing, or even browsing the web, it can be helpful to know how your Mac is performing. iStat Menus gives you all the information you could possibly need, right in the menu bar.

At a glance, you can see your CPU, memory, and SSD usage as well as your current download speed. You can even get local weather updates.

Amphetamine: Keep your Mac awake when you need it

Stop your Mac from going to sleep with Amphetamine. Start a new “session” and select the duration to keep your mac awake for. It’s great for servers, long processing tasks, and plenty of other situations.

Amphetamine is also highly customizable. Edit the menu bar icon, create custom settings for different apps, or set up triggers to automatically start a new session.

Download:Amphetamine (Free)

HiddenMe: Hide everything from your desktop

A cluttered desktop can be a real eyesore. Fortunately, HiddenMe makes it easy to sweep all that under the rug.

This simple Mac utility hides everything from your desktop. Turn it on and off using the menu bar icon or by recording your own shortcut.

It’s great for taking cleaner screenshots, clearing your head of clutter, or presenting a professional side to others.

Download:HiddenMe (Free, with Pro version available) Mac take picture with webcam.

Bartender 3: Keep your menu bar neat and tidy

With all these awesome new Mac utilities, you might find your menu bar is getting a bit cluttered. That’s where Bartender comes in.

With Bartender, you can choose which items to show or hide from the menu bar. For each app, choose to show, hide, always show, or always hide. Then expand or minimize your menu bar with a click.

Wipr: Eliminate ads, trackers, and cookies from the web

Wipr is a streamlined ad blocker to make browsing the web more pleasant than ever. All you need to do is turn it on and let it do its thing.

30 Free Macos Apps Every Mac User Should Have To Be

Wipr blocks ads, trackers, cryptocurrency miners, EU cookies, and GDPR notices. It doesn’t sell data or ad space to other companies and updates the “blocklist” twice a week.

Download:Wipr ($1.99)

30 Free Macos Apps Every Mac User Should Have Won

If you are looking for a service that allows you to use multiple macOS apps without paying individually for them, you can explore some of the options made available by companies such as BundleHunt. They are currently offering a Holiday app deal starting at $2/month for 42 different macOS apps that have been tested with macOS Catalina.

Dan is a freelance writer based in South West England.

He spent two years supervising repairs as a Genius Admin for Apple Retail and uses that knowledge to keep our troubleshooting guides up to date.

Long before that, Dan turned to Apple products from a musical background. Having owned iPods for years, he bought a MacBook to learn sound recording and production. It was using those skills that he gained a first-class Bachelor of Science in Sound Technology.

Related Posts: