What are your must-have Mac apps/utilities?

Question

I am just trying to find great Mac tools that could help me enjoy my macOS experience even more!

Patrick · Accepted Answer

Zenkit is a collaborative SaaS platform for project management, database building and more. From fluid brainstorming and research, through to a structured system for collaborative use, Zenkit is the flexible workspace you can use to organize anything. Now also available on Mac, Linux, and Windows.

J⋃ɑɴ Рαʙʟο ᏞοⅿеʟᎥ · Answer

MacOS included some functionality similar to what this app has provided for a long time, but is nowhere near as good as this one. If you use your mac at night, or for long periods of time, give your eyes some rest with this gem.

Yuriy Krisarchuk · Answer

Beautiful smart calculator for macOS

Pruthvi Panchani · Answer

I work on dual screen, I use this all the time for window management.

Yuriy Krisarchuk · Answer

The easiest and smartest photo enhancer in the world

Uday Singh · Answer

RescueTime changed the way I approached my work. By being able to use a data-driven approach to seeing when I'm most productive, I was able to rebuild my work-day to optimize for calmness and give myself space for the parts of my day where I'm the most productive. It's worth paying for, and I can't even wrap my mind around how much time I've saved using it.

J⋃ɑɴ Рαʙʟο ᏞοⅿеʟᎥ · Answer

With the powerpack, even with the enhancements done on Spotlight, Alfred remains unbeatable.  The possibilities are numerous! https://github.com/derimagia/awesome-alfred-workflows

Sumangal Vinjamuri · Answer

If you want clean focused UI, iOS sync and powerful yet easy-to-use organization for your notes and writing bouts, look no further than Bear!

Naveed Shah · Answer

Easy to use to resize and move windows all over

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Replaces the default Mac terminal.
Can store your passwords, for ssh and stuff.
Much better highlighting.
Git integration.
Splits the window both vertical and horizontal

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The older version is free and basically the same thing.

haabe · Answer

Free and simple tool that snaps the windows in place.

Primer · Answer

Massive increase in efficiency and happiness by using this app.

Sahil Sardessai · Answer

A menu bar utility which shows hotkeys for the active app.

Marcin Krzywonos · Answer

Use it every day. Great for people who work on multiple project

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I absolutely adore this freebie. I use it all the time when I need to remove any of the apps on my Mac without leaving a trace behind.

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The easiest way to transfer any media content (music, videos, ringtones) from your Mac onto your iOS device.

Asya Karapetyan · Answer

Try this one. You may be surprised by a number of duplicates on your disk.

Gehrig · Answer

Paste is a life changer; having a stored tally of recently copied text, links, code has saved me countless time and headaches.

Ole · Answer

A fast and easy overview about whats coming up.

Naveed Shah · Answer

This beats any CRM out there, especially if you pair it up with BusyCal - effortlessly tracks texts, emails, and calendar events with every contact. Tags make it easy to categorize, sort, and keep track of all your contacts and address books.

Matt Hagner · Answer

There are tons of great workflows already made, but if you know how to program, even a little, there is a ton of cool stuff you can do with this tool.

Josh Albrechtsen · Answer

The ultimate todo list! I've been using Things for many years now and it is essential to my workflow. I use Zapier to push tasks into Things from other places (like Hubspot, Trello, etc). Here is a little link I use to do my weekly planning:
things:///add-project?title=%F0%9F%93%85Weekly%20Review%20%F0%9F%93%85&when=today&deadline=today&to-dos=%F0%9F%93%84Collect%20loose%20papers%20and%20materials%0A%F0%9F%93%A5Get%20%22IN%22%20to%20zero%0A%F0%9F%A4%AFEmpty%20your%20head%0A%F0%9F%94%98Review%20anytime%20lists%0A%F0%9F%97%93Review%20previous%20calendar%20data%0A%F0%9F%97%93Review%20upcoming%20calendar%20data%0A%E2%8F%B1Review%20waiting%20for%20list%0A%F0%9F%A5%A7Review%20someday%20maybe%20list%0A%F0%9F%98%8EBe%20creative%20and%20courageous&reveal=true

Answer

Could you have ever imagined that your Mac junk can look so lovely? :D The best part is that you can easily identify and quickly remove any files from your macOS in case you need that extra space.

Dan Witte · Answer

Super easy tiling manager with solid customization

Carlo Zottmann 🇪🇺 · Answer

Lets you do anything with your Mac. Automate all the things! Script apps that don't have scripting support (by replaying macros containing keypresses, mouse movements, clicks, whatever), have your Mac react to USB events, date/time, your input, device keys, external triggers, sleep/wake events, filesystem triggers, etc.

I use it heavily for a few years by now, it's one of my essential apps.

Mohib Hassan · Answer

Great for late nights!

Kim Hoang Nguyen · Answer

Such a useful tool that I found on Product Hunt. A little icon on your menu bar that gives you a scratch pad to jot down quick notes.

Kirill Atstarov · Answer

really useful app for work&communication

Earnest Tao · Answer

If you're email is too unorganized, Astro helps you by uncluttering emails using AI. Very useful if you're inbox is like mine

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You can create custom mouse/touchpad gestures, keyboard shortcuts and a lot more.

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This is the best tool to compare files on Mac.

Naveed Shah · Answer

Best Calendar app for Mac and iOS

Greg Lamp · Answer

Sort of like Alfred for the web/cloud. Search all of your cloud services instantly and open the file you're looking for in 1 click. It's saved me tons of time and headaches--particularly at work where I have to use products that are...let's say not so user friendly.

J⋃ɑɴ Рαʙʟο ᏞοⅿеʟᎥ · Answer

This app lets you configure trackpad gestures, keyboard shortcuts and more, it's amazing

Alex Chernikov · Answer

Select any text in any app in macOS and get an instant translation for it. Save time on tabbing to translation websites.

Aleksandra · Answer

Setapp curates and gives you access to the best apps for your Mac. It makes easier for me to discover new apps and also save $$.

Paul Williams · Answer

Fantastical understands when you type "haircut at 9 on Thursday" and will create an event called "Haircut" on the right day at the right time. Neat! It has been the best tool to connect my iCal and Google all in one place! Great looking. Fun to use.

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It just feels like a part of the macOS itself, easily plugs into pretty much any workflow & provides quick access to files, notes and clipboard management.

Sahil Sardessai · Answer

A minimal menu bar utility which shows additional battery stats including time remaining and battery health statistics.

Raul Rocawabe · Answer

Get focused, 100%!

Sahil Sardessai · Answer

A minimal menu bar utility which shows additional battery stats including time remaining and battery health statistics.

Cooper Miller · Answer

It's pricey, but once you do it you can never go back to Apple's calendar app.

Raul Rocawabe · Answer

Just check on menubar how many time you've being without going out from your mac

Neill Lima · Answer

It is a great enhancement for the Terminal, must have!

Mark Jordan · Answer

Genius, can't live without it!

Matthew Morek · Answer

It's causing a slow response after several hours of use on a 5K iMac, but otherwise something macOS should've copied from Windows a long time ago.

Sahil Sardessai · Answer

A clean, sleek and minimal menu bar utility to check Internet speed.

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There's a variety of clipboard managers available for OS that are very useful, this is the one i've used for years, can't fault it.

Allan Caeg · Answer

Super great to have a clipboard history.... Even handles media files like images! Drag and drop for the win!

Paul Williams · Answer

This is the tool I use to find my stuff, go directly to something, to move something somewhere... all from the keyboard... I use it more than any other app on my Mac! (I saw someone below posted a "paste" app to recall what you've cut to re-paste it... Alfred has the ability to save snippets of code or text you use all the time, as well as pull from the list of the recent items you've cut so you can re-paste them!)

Paul Williams · Answer

Drag your app to AppCleaner and it finds all the files and preferences associated with that app, so you delete all of it. It also offers to uncheck files you may wish to leave behind (for example, if you have a newer/different version of the app and there's a plugin folder you wish to keep). Love it!

Paul Williams · Answer

This has become my 'go to' note app. It replaces Evernote for me. Syncs on all my devices. Can create links to other notes within Bear (like a wiki). Can use Markup. The *only* thing that holds it back from being perfect is that as of this writing you can't create tables.

Paul Williams · Answer

You simply drag the two files onto the app and it shows you a side-by-side view so you can easily see the differences. It has 3 settings on how to present the differences, whichever is easiest for the way you thinks! Great for .php web files, Word docs, stylesheets... all those files that would take too long to hunt down modifications!

Paul Williams · Answer

You already have that folder you want to save to open on your desktop, why hunt for it when you want to save to it? This app allows you to easily save to those folders as well as recent, favorites and more. I use this app 99% of when I save files and it saves me a lot of time!

Mohib Hassan · Answer

Screen management made easy!

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A good alternative to Grammarly. Last time I checked it was only available for Mac OS.

Tung Thanh · Answer

I need to be in control of what is happening with my connection

Zack Peters · Answer

If you have a Mac with limited hard drive space, you know how important it is to manage free space.  Fortunately, there's Hazel to help move your files to your external storage as well as a host of other automated functions.

Kolton Gagnon · Answer

I was a huge fan of Sunrise Calendar but I was easily able to replace all my calendar needs and more with Fantastical!

Dionis Loire · Answer

Taskade is the unified workspace for writing notes and managing your tasks. Desktop and mobile apps are available at www.taskade.com/downloads

Earnest Tao · Answer

I helps me from getting bags under my eyes

Eliza Weitzel · Answer

Tolles Tool zur Organisation von Aufgaben - Sehr empfehlenswert!

Becca An · Answer

Best App for project management!

Matt Trask · Answer

Ive been using oh-my-zsh for years and I havent looked back. Its fantastic, has great support and makes the terminal experience so much better.

George Gonzalez-Rivas · Answer

I need to quickly and easily see multiple tabs/tools simultaneously.

Matt Wong · Answer

Also supports window snapping and management

Fioralba Duma · Answer

Simply the best, I can't miss the feature of Visor neither that of Double Folders in one screen!

Kim Hoang Nguyen · Answer

Such a useful tool that I found on Product Hunt. A little icon on your menu bar that gives you a scratch pad to jot down quick notes.

JJ · Answer

Use this all the time, works great even if only for the peace of mind of knowing somethings "gone" gone.

Earnest Tao · Answer

The powerpack makes it awesome, with snippets and workflows