One of the best parts about owning an Apple computer is the massive ecosystem of superb macOS apps it gives you access to. There are apps available to Mac users no matter what you are looking for, whether that’s productivity apps, photo and video editors, security suites, and more. Although MacOS is well-known for its out-of-the-box reliability and convenience of use, several of the preinstalled programs fall short of our expectations. Apple is notorious for not listening to its customers, refusing to implement simple improvements that would make the platform even more user-friendly. Fortunately for you, we’ve compiled a list of the finest third-party macOS software to enhance and improve your Mac experience.
Some are for specific uses, while others fill in holes in macOS. Most of these applications aren’t free, but many of them offer free trials that you may try out before deciding whether or not to buy. It’s also typical for them to sync with iPhone companion apps. Your user experience will shoot up with these macOS apps.
Table of Contents
BetterSnapTool ($3)
It is on the top of the list of our favourite macOS apps. Yes, you can use Split Display on MacOS to view two applications side by side, but it’s not as simple as it is on Windows, where you can simply drag a window to a corner and it will snap into place. If you don’t want to constantly resize window borders, this software is well worth the $3. Magnet ($8) is another nice alternative, however, BetterSnapTool ($8) is a better deal now that it’s been upped from $3.
BetterSnapTool allows you to easily manage your window positions and sizes by either dragging them to one of the screen’s corners or the top, left, or right side of the screen. This enables you to easily maximize your windows, position them side by side or even resize them to quarters of the screen.
If you need even more than those standard snap areas, it now allows you to create your own, custom snap areas anywhere on your display. To be even more productive you can also set custom keyboard shortcuts to move and resize your windows.
Because there are so many positions available, it can also pop up an overview menu from which you can select the one position you want.
You can also customize what should happen after right-clicking one of the buttons on the top left of a window. Apps like these make the use of macOS easier and less complicated for people who have just switched to apple products.
More features included are:
- Move or resize the window below the cursor while holding customizable modifier keys.
- Select what happens when double-clicking a window’s title bar
- It is very customizable and will change the way you work with your Mac! It supports multiple monitors, hidden docks, etc. You can change the design of the preview overlays and even set application specific snapping sizes! It works with almost every application, only some apps with non-standard windows can’t be supported.
You can download it from here.
Amphetamine (Free)
Amphetamine is a free Mac app that helps users to keep their machines awake for a set amount of time. If you’ve ever had to constantly wriggle a finger on the trackpad to keep the screen from falling to sleep during a movie or YouTube video (or during a particularly long download), you will enjoy an app that allows you to keep the screen on for specific tasks. External screens are also supported. Sure, you can continually change the screensaver and hard disc shutdown settings in your system choices, but it gets old fast. It can keep your Mac, and optionally its display(s), awake through a super simple on/off switch, or automatically through easy-to-configure Triggers. It is extremely powerful and includes advanced features for those who need them, yet remains intuitive and easy to use for those who do not need all the bells and whistles.
You can download it from here.
Sensei
If you want a streamlined solution to help with maintenance on your new macOS, this is one of the best apps for you. It helps you in freeing up storage, uninstalling apps, and monitoring the overall health of your computer. If you only have 256GB of storage, you will appreciate the ability to delete unnecessary language files to free up more space for photos and videos.
It spans both software and hardware, including many more features than other apps in the Mac optimization category. It includes features for cleaning your disk, uninstalling apps, analyzing battery and disk health, monitoring CPU/GPU/RAM statistics, optimizing boot start-up speeds, and much more.
Sensei Features
- Performance Dashboard
- Start-up Speed Optimizer
- Disk Cleaner
- SSD Trim Enabler
- HDD/SSD S.M.A.R.T Reporter
- Health Analyzer
- Disk Benchmark
- Statistics Monitor
Download it here
Ulysses
Check out Ulysses if you bought a Mac and want to enhance your writing production in 2021. It combines a focused writing experience with built-in document management, quick synchronization, and versatile export choices to give you the best of both worlds. It also syncs with the iOS versions.
Ulysses lets you focus when you need to concentrate. It keeps all your texts neatly stuffed in its intuitive library. With a few clicks, Ulysses can create beautiful documents from your manuscripts: PDFs, web pages, and even iBooks-ready ePubs. With its simple, clutter-free interface, it will turn work hours into fun time. And mere thoughts into powerful stories. If you love to write and you write a lot, Ulysses is made for you.
It is one of the most popular writing apps available for Mac, and it solves many problems that solutions like Pages, Word, and Google Docs present for writers. It is a minimalist, distraction-free writing app that supports short and long-form projects.
Features
- Firstly, it’s strictly designed for Apple users writing on a Mac, iPad, or iPhone. Unfortunately, that rules out writers on Windows and Android.
- Secondly, Ulysses offers a customizable, minimalistic interface that can do everything you want it to but stays out of the way when you don’t need it.
You can download it from here.
CleanShot X
CleanShot X is required if you frequently take screenshots for sending over UI corrections, troubleshooting explanations, and so on. It is, without a doubt, the best screenshot application for the Mac. It’s so basic, but it’s so effective. It can record video, create GIFs, add annotations, blur sensitive material, and much more. I can’t think of anything I’d change about the app. It’s something well worth the money.
It adds an array of powerful features for screen capture and recording on Mac. It replaces the built-in macOS screenshot tool with a more powerful and versatile set of features. There are powerful tools for annotation, saving images to the cloud, full-page screenshots, and much more.
The app has a feature that helps make sure sensitive information isn’t visible in your screenshots. While you could always pixelate sensitive information in CleanShot images, you can also blur that information. There’s also a “secure blur” option that randomizes the blur pattern so everything is even more illegible.
It also has the ability to lock the aspect ratio when you select the recording area. This makes it easier to record screen captures at a specific aspect ratio, such as 16:9 for uploads to YouTube.
Other features in CleanShot X version 4.1 include:
- “Move to trash” to the Quick Access Overlay context menu (right-click)
- Option to disable screen dimming while recording
- Option to bypass “Save as” dialog when holding ⌥ (Alt/Option) in Annotate window
- “Save” and “OCR” options to the Pinned screenshot context menu (right-click)
- Improved compatibility with Desktop stacks and displaying file extension
- Changed close button location on Quick Access Overlay
- Bug fixes and UI improvements
You can download the app from the CleanShot website for a one-time purchase of $29. It’s also available through the popular Setapp service, which includes a wide array of Mac apps for a single monthly subscription.
You can download it from here.
Airbuddy 2
This had to be on this list of must-have macOS apps. With AirBuddy 2, you can simply open your AirPods case next to your Mac and see the current status right away, just like how it works on your iPhone. A single click gets you connected, a swipe down lets you connect and change listenings modes at the same time. Fully customizable battery alerts help you keep track of your device’s batteries.
Features
- Beautiful UI
Just open your AirPods case next to your Mac to see its status. Or set up a custom keyboard shortcut to show the battery state of your AirPods or Beats device at any time.
- Battery Alerts
Never forget to charge a device. With battery alerts, you can be notified when any of your devices are running low on battery or have finished charging. Thresholds can be customized per device and they sync across your Macs.
- Menu bar
AirPods, iPhones, Macs, you name it. With the AirBuddy icon in the menu bar, you can get an overview of all of your nearby devices. You can even see the status for your other nearby Macs running AirBuddy and their peripherals.
- Quick Actions
Change listening modes quickly with a global keyboard shortcut. You can set up custom keyboard shortcuts to show a device’s status, quickly toggle listening modes from anywhere, automatically connect to the nearest headset, and more.
- Smart Stats
Get battery usage stats for your headsets. AirBuddy keeps track of the state of your headsets when they’re nearby, even if they’re not connected to your Mac. This enables the app to show you usage statistics, including which AirPod is consuming its battery more quickly, as well as overall call and listening times.
- Magic Handoff
Move your Magic Mouse, Keyboard, or Trackpad with a single click. If you’d like to share a Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, or Magic Trackpad with another Mac running AirBuddy, you can quickly transfer them with just a single click.
Download it from here.
Pixelmator Pro
Pixelmator Pro is Mac App of the Year because it makes a huge range of pro-level image-editing tools accessible to all.
Among photographers, illustrators, and graphic designers, Pixelmator has been a longtime favorite for its powerful features and affordable price. Pixelmator Pro takes the suite to the next level. This upgraded app packs even more power without compromising ease of use—and introduces impressive machine-learning intelligence.
The app is flexible enough to handle photo editing, painting, and illustration. For illustrators, it offers a rich canvas with an array of customizable brushes and support for external drawing tablets. Graphic designers will appreciate the vector tools. And Pixelmator Pro’s advanced color adjustment helps photographers make their images pop (without leaving artifacts).
Features
Coolest of all, machine-learning features bring cutting-edge intelligence to your workflow. By leveraging the Core ML framework on macOS Mojave, Pixelmator Pro recognizes specific elements in your projects with startling accuracy. This lets you easily remove objects from photos or select complicated forms with just a few clicks. Auto Color Adjustments improve your photos’ lightness, saturation, and more with ML-powered algorithms that were trained using millions of images. Pro can even automatically name all the layers in your project based on what appears in them.
Pixelmator Pro puts an incredibly broad range of tools at your fingertips. And its sleek Dark Mode is just icing on the cake.
Download it from here.
Vinegar for Safari
On all of your devices, a new Safari extension called “Vinegar” should be installed. It’s a Safari extension for iPhone, iPad, and Mac that was released in November to replace YouTube with a simple HTML player. I’ve been using it for a few weeks now and can’t see going back to YouTube’s default experience. I really wish there were apps like this for Android but unfortunately, macOS users get all the fun.
Vinegar is a Safari extension for macOS and iOS that banishes the YouTube video player and replaces it with Apple’s built-in player. This allows for proper Picture-in-Picture (PiP), better subtitle support, full-screen mode from anywhere, and more. Vinegar also removes ads.
It rids YouTube videos of all their usual annoyances. But how did it come to this? The last time web video was so bad, it was due to the Flash Player that killed the battery on any device that used one.
Vinegar replaces any video player with a simple, built-in player. It’s possible to do something similar without an extension, but it requires clicking a Javascript bookmarklet every time you need it. Vinegar removes ads, all those annoying video-suggestion thumbnails that appear every time you pause a YouTube video, makes PiP available any time (as well as full-screen video), and prevents YouTube from tracking your watching activity.
You also get nice touches like support for Safari’s built-in subtitle engine and a toolbar at the top of the screen, which lets you choose the resolution of the video—including a setting to force the default resolution and stop YouTube from serving a low-res stream. It even works on YouTube videos embedded on other sites.
You can download it from here.
Carbon Copy Cloner 6
It is a backup app that’s super simple to use. It’s the type of Mac app we hope you never have to use, but when disaster strikes, you’ll be glad you’ve got it. It is one of those macOS apps which will keep your device efficient and smooth.
One of its best features is the ability to create bootable backups of your startup disk. That means that if your main drive fails and you can’t power on your Mac, you can boot from your backup and get on with your work. It’s a real lifesaver.
You can also back up your files and data to an external hard drive or another Mac, then restore everything with a few clicks. After your first big backup, it’ll only back up files that have been updated, saving you space.
You can download it from here.
Little Snitch
This app gives you control over your private outgoing data. It is a permissions blocker that lets you control all of your incoming and outgoing connections. If you’ve got an app that you don’t want connecting to the internet, the software can block it on your behalf. You can set it to block a single instance, until you quit a particular app, or forever. It’s great for controlling freaks like us who prefer to know everything our Mac is doing. This is a must-have and one of the highly recommended macOS apps.
Features:
- Track background activity
As soon as your computer connects to the Internet, applications often have permission to send any information wherever they need to. It takes note of this activity and allows you to decide for yourself what happens with this data.
- Control your network
Choose to allow or deny connections, or define a rule on how to handle similar, future connection attempts. It runs inconspicuously in the background and it can even detect network-related activity of viruses, trojans, and other malware.
You can download it from here.
OnyX
OnyX is a multifunction utility that you can use to verify the structure of the system files; run miscellaneous maintenance and cleaning tasks; configure parameters in the Finder, Dock, Safari, and some Apple applications; delete caches; remove certain problematic folders and files; rebuild various databases and indexes; and more.
It is one of the most reliable macOS apps that provides a clean interface to many tasks that would otherwise require complex commands to be typed using a command-line interface.
Mac maintenance might not be as vital to the day-to-day operation of your Mac as it once was, but slowdowns still happen. And when they do, Onyx will clear them up. A general-purpose utility with more tools than a Swiss Army knife, Onyx packages maintenance scripts, cache cleaning, and permissions repairers to keep your Mac in tip-top shape. Its simple interface makes it quick and painless to run all kinds of cleaning solutions, but its best feature might be the individual optimized versions Titanium Software offers, going back to Jaguar.
You can download it from here.
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