• Font Manager For Mac
• Font Management Software Mac
• Best Font Program For Mac
• Best Font Managers For Mac
• Font Management App

What does a day in the life of a graphic designer look like? Wince at the sight of poor fonts. Go to a website and close it immediately because you hate the colors. Try to persuade your manager you need both Photoshop and Lightroom. Yeah, we know the pain.

Font management free download - Font Xplorer, Font Wrangler, MyFonts Windows Font Manager, and many more programs. Font Manager Software. Review, add, remove and search fonts installed on. Thanks to OS X 10.3’s Font Book, most Mac users don’t need to buy a font management program. But if you have tons of fonts, share a font library with others, or have lots of fonts flowing.

Unfortunately, we can’t talk to your boss about the Adobe subscription. What we can do is to ensure you have the right fonts — always close at hand.

Best font managers for macOS

Find the perfect font organizer and viewer for your Mac

Font or typeface, what’s the difference?

A few boring definitions to start with. Pinky promise, we’re gonna be finished with that in a sec.

In graphic design, the notions of font and typeface are often used interchangeably. They are not the same, though. Coming from the age of the printing press, fonts were used as the variations of a typeface family — differing in weight, size, etc. So basically, a font is a set of characteristics that define a style of a typeface.

On a Mac, you have fonts each of which is an individual style with distinctive width and weight properties — even though they might belong to the same typeface. For instance, if you say Verdana, you mean a family of fonts which includes Verdana Regular, Verdana Italic, and more.

How to manage fonts on Mac

Apple knows a designer’s pain points as well. So it created Font Book, a free font manager that allows to install and remove fonts on your Mac. The program is very basic, but works for a beginner as well as non-designers who need fonts variety.

Enable and disable fonts

You can’t actually delete fonts, but you can make sure you don’t see the unneeded ones in your collection. Font Book comes with font families, so you can decide whether you want to disable the whole family or a particular font:

1. Select a font family or click on the arrow next to it to open the list of fonts.
2. Go to Edit in the menu bar and select Disable.
3. Choose Disable All to get rid of the full collection.

You can also download a new font from the Internet and use it with Font Book (the supported extensions are otf, .ttf, and .ttc). Once you unpack a zip with a new font, select the file with a corresponding extension to open preview, and click Install Font. This will get the font right into your Font Book.

Bring fonts into libraries and collections

Font Book has four default libraries: All, English, User, and Computer. The last two are stored in the Library folder. User fonts are available to the admin only, and Computer fonts — to anyone accessing a Mac.

If these are not enough, you can create your custom libraries of fonts:

1. Go to the File menu and select New Library.
2. Give the library a name and click Enter to save.
3. Drag the selected fonts from All Fonts to your custom library.

You can also customize libraries by creating collections inside them. These will point to specific installed fonts across your libraries. To add new collections, select File > New Collection. Once you’ve saved it, drag fonts to the collection the same way you’ve done with libraries. Alternatively, click the plus button in the bottom left corner to add fonts.

Note that you don’t remove a font from its original collection when you drag it somewhere else. So you’ll still need to disable it if you don’t want to have duplicates across collections.

Why do you need a Mac font manager?

Fonts and colors define content. That’s something most graphic designers will tell you, and that’s the way our visual perception works. Even if you think you know nothing about design, try to change fonts in your Instagram stories. They will look totally different — some of them appearing to suit well, the others being completely out of place.

If you do graphic design for a living, you probably have dozens of fonts that work for specific types of design. Plus, you can choose a typeface that is trendy and gives your content a modern look without damaging the clarity of text. To keep up the good work, you have to keep exploring.

For instance, Creative Boom — an online magazine for artists and content creators — names Euklid and GT Haptik the top fonts of 2019. If you look at the same list the magazine released in 2018, you’ll find neither of these in it. So if you follow the trends, you’ll need to keep your fonts collection up to date.

Font management software helps designers organize fonts, easily view the selected ones, rename or delete the fonts that are no longer needed. Saves time and keeps your work professional.

If you’re here to choose the best tool for macOS, here’s how you narrow down your search:

Font manager features you’re looking for

• Compelling UI: It’s quite a challenge to find a tool that combines a font checker, organizer, and installer. It’s even harder to find the one that looks well on your screen and never distracts you from the job. When it comes to a design workflow, UI will mean everything. So we recommend to pay attention to the tools that adjust to your design software — ideally, allow to navigate across fonts via a handy sidebar.

• Filtering and collections. Why else would you land here. The app you choose should know how to organize fonts on Mac. The more flexible it goes in terms of collections, libraries, and preview options — the better.

• Customization: The main reason you should go for a Font Book alternative is it’s not customizable enough. With Apple’s in-built font organizer, you won’t be able to preview fonts in different sizes. What’s more, your font preview will always open in a new window. The advanced font apps will let you see how a font looks on your particular project — instantly.

Best font management software for Mac

Font organization is only useful to a degree you feel comfortable using it. This is why Font Book is not enough — with very little customization assets in it. We’ve compiled a list of top three apps that you can add to your macOS and start saving time on font selection.

Typeface

Remember we’ve talked about how it’s hard to find an all-in-one font organizer? Well, it’s where Typeface makes an ideal example. Unlike the clumsy Font Book and the overcomplicated RightFont, Typeface works as a designer’s personal assistant — whatever the proficiency level.

Here’s what you can do with the Typeface font manager:

1. Control your fonts

   A user decides how the fonts should be displayed on a Mac’s screen. From preview samples to font size and blurring effects, you can completely customize your Typeface journey. The best thing is you can actually create instant mockups that show you how a particular font will look on a project.

2. Hundreds or thousands, you’ll keep all the right fonts at hand

   Search is the best part of the app. To find a font you need, browse through the categories on the sidebar, or type in the name in the upper right corner. The fonts are grouped by families, so it’s easier to navigate between different typefaces.

   You can take a closer look at each font by clicking on it. Not only will you see the sample text, every font page also covers the detailed metadata and all the letterforms. If you switch to the Info tab, you’ll also see the list of supported languages as well as tags for this particular font.

3. Curation functionality

   Let’s make one thing clear. You need personalized collections if you work with different fonts. Typeface doesn’t only record your collections, it also allows share particular sets of fonts with the whole team in a click. As you browse through available fonts, you can save them to a quick collection on the spot and organize them into collections later. All you have to do is grab a font and drag it onto the quick collection button in the upper left corner.

Who’s it for?

Everyone. Whether you are a professional graphic designer with your personal base of fonts, or you can’t tell the difference between a font and typeface, this app is for you.

Why yes

• Focus on all proficiency levels
• Customizable font collections
• A quick collection feature
• Available with Setapp subscription

Why no

• Works on macOS only

What’s the price?

• $19.99 if you purchase the app on the Mac App Store or official website
• Free with Setapp. You only pay for a fixed monthly subscription, which gives you access to all-in-one pack of 170 best apps for macOS
• Free trial available

RightFont

RightFont is an advanced solution on how to organize fonts. The app works on Mac, Windows, and Linux — so it’s handy if you design for different operating systems. Plus, RightFont works with all major design software like Sketch, Adobe CC, Illustrator, and more.

The app embraces many roles you can benefit from:

• Font management: Create curated collections of fonts, based on your project specifications.
• Font Syncing: Share your fonts with colleagues via iCloud or Dropbox.
• Cloud fonts: Easily install and use Google or Adobe fonts.
• Font auto activation: Solve the problem with missing fonts through instant auto activation. So that whenever you open a program that has missing fonts, you can bulk install them.

Who’s it for?

Professional graphic designers. Even better — teams of designers working on shared projects. The volume licence will cost you less if you use the app on multiple devices. The maximum number of seats you can get is 50 ($40 per device versus the regular price of $45).

Why yes

• Auto-activation of fonts
• Grid view for easy comparison of two fonts
• Sharing font collections via Dropbox and other cloud services

Why no

• Steep learning curve

What’s the price?

$49.99 per single license on the official website

Starting $45 per device with a volume license (2+ devices)

FontBase

You can get the feel of your fonts with FontBase — free of charge. The only font manager that offers a free plan, this app does a good job if you’re interested in the features like font upload, Google fonts management, and simple UI.

Add the new fonts by dragging them to a specific folder. You can also create and customize your own collections of fonts. In the preview, you’ll be able to switch between styles, glyphs, and waterfall.

Font Manager For Mac

The main disadvantage is the preview section. It’s pretty basic and doesn’t allow simple customization. For instance, you’ll have to get a paid plan to have access to grid view.

Who’s it for?

The app is uncomplicated and can be used by beginners. For everyday use, designers will lack flexibility in terms of previews as well as won’t be able to auto activate fonts with a free plan. So we recommend to get FontBase Awesome — a paid subscription plan — if you need an advanced solution.

Why yes

• Simple UI
• Advanced glyphs and views with the paid plan
• Google fonts support

Why no

• Doesn’t make much use without upgrading to a pro plan

What’s the price?

FontBase is the only free font manager on the list. Well, kind of. You get a set of basic features like font collections, search, Google fonts installation, and more. However, to get access to the extended functionality — auto activation, super search, and multiple views — you have to upgrade to FontBase Awesome, which is a $3 monthly subscription.

Note that you will have issues trying to launch FontBase and RightFont on macOS Catalina beta:

Here’s a quick fix for you:

1. Access your Applications folder via Finder.
2. Find the installed app on the list.
3. Right click the icon > Open.
4. In the pop-up window, click on Open to launch the app.

So here’s the verdict:

If you know graphic design backwards and forwards, get RightFont. It’s gonna be expensive, but will pay off in the long run.

FontBase is your choice if you’re just starting — once you learn the ropes, you can upgrade to the pro plan and expand the toolkit.

Lastly, Typeface is as close to a universal font manager as you can imagine. It has functionality perks for pros and is easy to master for complete beginners. If you buy Typeface via Setapp, you also get a full pack of additional design apps. Like IconJar for quick icon management. Aquarelo to refine and convert your colors. And Goldie App to instantly visualize golden ratio on a Mac.

What’s a Font Manager?

A font manager is an app that allows you to organize and manage all the fonts installed on your computer. Working with a great number of fonts without this tool may pose a lot of challenges.

Even if you’re creating a simple poster or an academic presentation, the font you choose matters. Just imagine that you’re doing several projects and need to find the perfect font for each of them right away. Here is when an easy-in-use font manager comes especially in handy — you’ll be able to quickly grab what you need without wasting time searching your computer for each one.

Apart from protecting system fonts from accidental deletion, the best font manager is also able to search, view, sort and rename fonts as well as fix or uninstall corrupted ones.

When you’re using fonts without a font manager, they’re generally copied to your system fonts folder. Having tons of both significant and rarely used fonts stored in it leads to long app loading times (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop) and system performance errors.

What is excellent about the font manager is that it’s designed for maintaining system stability. It can activate/deactivate a font or group of fonts manually or automatically only when required, without wasting system resources.

By default, macOS has its own font management app — Font Book. It’s pretty basic and has a limited set of features.

If you have a vast collection and use many fonts a day, you’ll surely need a more advanced tool. We are going to show why you should consider using font manager tools and share the best options for Mac available on the market.

Let’s get started!

How We Tested

The best font manager for Mac should come with multiple features to make your workflow fast and effective. Choosing a perfect tool gives you an opportunity to spend time on what’s really important — your work and creativity. To test these font manager apps, I used MacBook Air and paid attention to the following criteria:

User Interface

An intuitive and minimalistic interface is what we’re looking for. As you’re going to use a font manager app to manage a ton of fonts, you should be able to find the one you need right away.

The best software must let you customize the viewing options to make your user experience as smooth as possible. For instance, it should allow you to choose how many fonts are shown so that you’ll have a more in-depth look at each one — and vice versa.

Also, the user-friendly interface must make the preview and font-by-font comparison much easier as well as provides some other perks that turn working with fonts into a thrilling game, not a painful process.

Organization features

There’s nothing quite like keeping your vast font collection well-organized, right? To keep all the fonts you use arranged, a good font manager should allow you to create groups, categories, and/or labels. Using it, you should be able to activate and deactivate the fonts, filter them as you like, sort, print, export, and more with just a few clicks.

Integration with cloud platforms

Support for cloud services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and SkyFonts will help you copy your font collection to every device you use as well as share it with others. Third-party software integration is a useful feature, especially for teams and agencies.

Affordability

We believe that the price tag of the software must be reasonable compared to the features it offers. If an app isn’t free, it should provide the free trial for you to check it out before purchasing.

The Winners

Best Font Manager for Mac: Typeface 2

Whether you’re a professional designer with a strong background or just a newbie, Typeface 2 has features that work perfectly well for everyone. No matter how vast is your font collection, this app lets you effectively organize it and works without a glitch.

As a beautifully designed font manager with a minimalistic interface, Typeface 2 makes browsing your fonts smooth and enjoyable. There is also an eye-soothing and stylish Night theme, which allows you to preview fonts in the dark.

As you can see, the interface is divided into two sides — a left side for fonts organization and the right side for a live preview. Depending on the style, the flexible tagging system categorizes all imported fonts into folders like Modern, Fun, Traditional, Web, etc. Of course, you can add new tags on your own as well.

The viewing options can also be customized as easy as pie. You can decide how many fonts are shown on a page, adjust the size of each font, and input the word or phrase that you want to preview. The last feature is especially beneficial when you’re searching for an ideal font for branding or logo.

Did you find a perfect font? Click on it, and Typeface 2 shows you a character list and detailed info such as language support and other specifications.

As we said, Typeface 2 lets you break down your font collection into categories or tags. This feature comes in handy when you work in a team and need to quickly export the set of fonts required for a particular project or want to make a backup copy. The app can also create a PDF of your hand-picked fonts so that you can show them to clients or print them out for reference.

What about importing new fonts? This easy-to-use font manager is always ready to expand your library with free fonts from the Google Fonts and Adobe Fonts catalog as well as download specific ones from the web. All imported fonts can be activated or deactivated manually and automatically.

Perhaps the best feature in Typeface 2 is live font comparison. With its help, you’ll see even the tiniest differences by putting one font over another. Here is how it looks when you try it:

Typeface 2 is currently available for Mac only and requires macOS 10.11 or higher. The app costs $19.99 on the Mac App Store or is free with a $9.99/month subscription to Setapp. The price is entirely fair compared to the impressive feature set you get. However, you can always check out the free 15-day trial before making a final decision on purchasing.

Best Free Font Manager App: Font Base

Built for designers by designers, Font Base has an intuitive interface that can be easily used by everyone who works with fonts, not only by professionals. Whether you have just a few fonts or a huge collection, the app will run equally fast and let you activate/deactivate specific fonts required for a particular project with a single click.

Font Management Software Mac

The interface of FontBase is as simple as it can be. On the left sidebar, you’ll find various categories, collections, folders, and other filters. On the right, there is a list of fonts with previews.

This font organizer leaves enough space for customization — you can change the font size and regulate how many options are shown on a page. Also, you can choose the preferred color both for fonts and background, which is great for imaging how your font will look in a project.

Just click on the font you like, and you’ll see the specimen page with styles, individual glyphs, and the waterfall tab (different font sizes on one page). Although FontBase is a free app, it offers some paid features limited to the Pro version, and the Glyphs View is one of them. To see all glyphs, you need to buy a subscription to an additional set of FontBase’s features.

Best Font Program For Mac

As for importing fonts, FontBase does a great job. To start using them, drag and drop a folder (with or without subfolders) with fonts into the app or copy them to the program’s root folder on your computer. All the fonts added to the app are inactive. To activate a font, click on the grey circle at the left side of its name. When the font manager is closed, all fonts are automatically deactivated.

FontBase runs smoothly when it comes to Google Fonts support. You can also sync your fonts across multiple desktops by moving the app’s root folder to Dropbox or Google Drive.

Best Font Managers For Mac

Every time you open the font manager, it’ll invite you to “become Awesome”. Awesome is a bunch of subscription plans — monthly, yearly or forever, which adds some advanced features to a standard free set. A monthly subscription costs only $3 per month, so you can try and decide whether you need these “awesome features” or free ones are enough for you.

As we said, this front organizer is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux at no cost. Still, it has an easy-to-use interface and all the must-have features to provide a quality user experience. Compared with Typeface 2, FontBase has limited viewing options, but it is available for free and is enough for many users.

Best Font Browser for Casual Users: WordMark.it

If you’re just a casual user who is looking for a light-weight tool to compare the fonts in your library then browser-based Wordmark.it is undoubtedly worth taking a look at. It allows you to preview your text in the fonts installed on your computer within the browser with just a few clicks.

To see how the text looks with your fonts, you need to enter a word, phrase, or even a paragraph in the special field. The web app will immediately show you how your text looks with different fonts. You can scroll through the examples, select a few of them, and compare to pick the best one.

The app automatically modifies the font size based on the length of your entry. However, you can increase and decrease the size with the plus and minus buttons on the top left menu if it’s not a comfortable viewing size.

Compared to previously mentioned apps, Wordmark.it lacks some main features such as activation/deactivation of the fonts. In fact, the tool’s set of free features is quite limited. For instance, to unlock Google Fonts support, Tagging, Dark mode, and other helpful features, you have to buy Wordmark.it Pro for $2/month or pay $24 for a yearly subscription.

Still, Wordmark.it is a quick and easy-to-use tool with a simple interface that will help you review your system-based fonts without downloading any additional software. Editing video software free mac. So, why not give it a try if you don’t need a full-fledged font manager?

The Competition

RightFont 5

RightFont 5 is one of the biggest competitors for Typeface 2 due to its awesome feature set. But the app has not so intuitive interface that prevents easy access to the font preview. Even after being redesigned, the latest version of RightFont looks oversimplified compared to the font managers mentioned above.

Designed primarily for professional designers and teams, RightFont 5 may be too complicated for beginners. But experienced users will make the most of using this advanced app. The tool creates a valuable font management experience. It helps easily sync, install and organize system fonts as well as Google Fonts, Adobe Typekit fonts, SkyFonts, and Monotype Library.

RightFont 5 lets you sync your font library and share it with your team via Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive and other cloud services. So, when it comes to effective font collaboration, the app is a perfect choice for both in-house and remote designer teams working on the same project.

RightFont 5 is available for a per-device price of $40 with a 15-day fully functional free trial. If you want to buy a license for your team, you have to pay $32-36, depending on the number of devices.

Suitcase Fusion

Developed by Extensis, Suitcase Fusion is an upgraded font manager for organizing, finding, viewing, and using fonts within your workflow. While our top pick Typeface 2 is for everyone, Suitcase Fusion works best for professional designers and developers who are looking for more advanced features and third-party integration.

The app doesn’t have the most minimalistic and intuitive interface compared to other options on our list. However, it provides a detailed font preview and keeps everything quite organized.

Font Management App

Suitcase Fusion plugins are available for tools like Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, InDesign and After Effect. The manager can easily sync your font collection via the cloud, making it accessible across devices. There is also a FontDoctor, a tool focused on a font corruption detection and repair.

The font manager offers a 15-day free trial, but the downloading process is quite tricky. To get the download link on the Extensis website, you need to sign up or login if you already have an account. Suitcase Fusion is priced at $119.95, which may seem high, especially for newbies. Even so, it’s worth trying. If you want to test it out, use a fully functional free trial.

Font Explorer X Pro 6

While the interface of the app looks quite old-school, Font Explorer X Pro remains a unique app with the rich set of enterprise-oriented features. It’s a fully-equipped font manager with font organization by sets and automatic font activation/deactivation. The app is perfectly integrated into macOS with Retina Display optimization and Spotlight support.

The main focus of Font Explorer X Pro is on font metadata. It provides detailed information on every font, a list of characters, customized preview, and even kerning.

The app is available for $99 to all new customers. Still, it’s possible to try a 30-day free trial. Note that prior registration is required for downloading. It’s hard to decide whether an individual designer would benefit from using Font Explorer, but if you’re looking for an agency-level tool for Mac, it’s surely worth your attention.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to font managers, there are apps that suit every taste. We hope our list will help you pick the best option that will accelerate your workflow and meet all your professional needs. So the next time you have too many fonts to care for, choose one of those apps, and manage your collection as efficiently as possible.

Have you tried another app that’s worth being featured in this Mac font manager app review? Let us know in the comments below!