The finest part about owning an Apple computer is the colossal ecosystem of terrific Mac apps it provides you access to.

They magnify your user experience, boosting productivity and helping you extract the most out of your device.

 

Last year I published an article with a few best mac apps on my Medium profile, and to my surprise, it got pretty impressive engagement.

So here I am back afresh with the Top 15 Best mac apps you should know about. Let’s cut to the chase.

Note: The quoted pricing for every app is for US readers. Indian Prices may vary.

 

 

Interface

Let me begin by sharing some best mac apps to recreate the interface of your device.

 

Alfred 5

If you are someone who utilises Spotlight frequently, I have a superior alternative for you- Alfred. It is a search and app launcher capable of controlling your Mac, performing calculations, executing web searches and finding word definitions.

What is unbelievable about Alfred is that it works faster than the in-built system search. It takes less time than Spotlight to display the results for your searches.

 

With Alfred, you can also create workflows for automation, access your clipboard history & snippets, and navigate between folders while performing quick actions on files.

It is also not just confined to your Mac storage, so you can carry out a Google or DuckDuckGo search directly from Alfred.

Pricing: Alfred has a free plan for basic users, and the powerpack plan with advanced functionality costs $33.99 per user.

 

Bartender 4

The Bartender is a nuanced tool to help you organise your Mac menu bar. If you have a lot of apps, your menu bar is most probably brimful with many icons.

Bartender helps you hide these app icons to achieve a cleaner and minimal look. In the latest update, they have also added a Quick reveal feature that reveals the hidden icons whenever your pointer moves to an empty area in the menu bar.

This is how my menu bar looks without the Bartender app; as you can witness, it’s pretty intrusive with numerous icons.

 

See how extensively cleaner it looks after the Bartender is installed.

 

Pricing: It costs $16 + local taxes after the four-week free trial.

 

Magnet 

Magnet is a terrific Mac app for multi-taskers. 👨‍💻

Mac OS offers limited functionality for pinning apps. This is where Magnet stands apart. It provides users with the native feature of Windows OS that lets them drag and snap different windows into organised tiles.

 

Having multiple windows aligned neatly in tile structure eliminates the need for app switching, enhances multi-tasking and reduces clutter.

It supports up to six external monitors and adapts smoothly to vertical displays. The tiles can be set in halves, quarters, and thirds. There are infinite potential tile combinations.

Pricing: Magnet is priced at $1.99 on the app store.

 

Security and Storage 

Time to address the best Mac apps for security and storage management.

 

LastPass

LastPass is a feature-rich password manager with military-grade encryption (256-bit AES), zero-knowledge policy, multiple two-factor authorisations (2FA), and biometric passwords.

It retains all your passwords in an encrypted online vault. Another good security feature is its password generator that forms strong passwords while registering on sites utilising a combination of symbols and lower & uppercase characters.

 

You can also download the Last pass app on Android and iOS devices. It even offers extensions for all famous browsers, including Chrome, Safari, Opera, Firefox, and more.

The feature that I use the most is password sharing. It makes it extremely simple for users to share passwords and other data with other LastPass users.

Pricing: Free plan with one-to-one sharing, Premium plan with one-to-many sharing at $3.00 per month.

 

Daisydisk

If your Mac has been sluggish lately, the junk files and caches hiding in plain sight may be the culprit.

Daisydisk reveals to you the files that occupy ample storage space on your Mac through an innovative, colourful visual representation.

 

It is also the fastest and nicest-looking disk analyser on the market.

It has a satisfying file collector at the bottom left corner where you can drag & drop any files to remove them permanently. It will provide a running count of how much storage space you have freed up.

Pricing: Free trial for a limited time and Paid plan with full access at $9.99.

 

Productivity

Who doesn’t like to be more productive? This is my treasured part, so I am about to nerd out. 🤓

 

Notion 

Notion is my go-to productivity tool for task management with an immaculately minimal UX design.

It is the most straightforward tool for single users and small teams for collaboration and streamlining the project management process.

You can create a Second brain with this all-in-one tool to organise your thoughts, projects and information.

Notion offers a wide range of templates, from personal journaling to academic tracking. The app has highly customisable elements like its pages, dashboards, and task lists. It also syncs across all your mobile and mac devices.

 

I use Notion to keep track of my Blog content, clientele work, university progress, journaling, and even compiling my dearest Movies/Tv shows/Books/Podcasts. It is an app I highly recommend to people like me who struggle to capture their ideas or memorise things.

Pricing: Free plan with unlimited pages & blocks, Personal pro plan with unlimited file uploads at $4 per month, and Team plan with collaborative workplace & unlimited team members at $8 per month.

 

ClickUp

If you think Notion is too elementary, try using ClickUp.

I was introduced to ClickUp last year via one of my clients, and oh boy, it has intensified my productivity.

It is a cloud-based project management tool with advanced collaboration and automation features, making it the best rated in its class.

Small to medium-sized businesses use ClickUp to streamline projects & workflows, organise tasks, track changes, create schedules, and track time.

 

One thing about Clickup is that it can be slightly intimidating for beginners, but once you have gotten used to its features, you can’t go back to any other tool.

Read my guide to Enhance your Workflow using ClickUp from here.

Pricing: Free plan for personal use, Unlimited plan for small teams at $5 monthly, Business plan for mid-sized businesses at $12 monthly, and Business plus for multiple teams at $19 monthly.

 

Slack

Slack is an industry-leading Business messaging app for collaboration. It has an intuitive interface with public and private channels, easy file sharing, one-click video calls through Zoom and much more.

Channels are the spine of Slack conversations. The admin gets to add people, decide roles, change channel names, and perform various other actions for customisation.

 

Users can customise alerts by muting them for unimportant channels and disabling notifications altogether.

It also integrates with numerous apps like Google drive, docs, Dropbox, Microsoft Office and Trello.

Pricing: Free plan for small teams, Standard plan for mid-sized groups at $6.68 per month, and Plus plan for large teams at $12.50 per month.

 

XMind

Mind mapping is an artistic and clever method of brainstorming and detecting connections between ideas. It can solve tricky problems, create presentations or get your thoughts in order.

I prefer to do most of my mind mapping digitally using Xmind. It is a minimalistic open-source platform for developing custom mind maps. 🧠

 

The developers painstakingly created numerous visual structures that they call “skeletons”. One nice feature is the pitch mode that generates video presentations of your mind maps with animated transitions.

It also has a Zen mode that further simplifies the user interface so you can put all your focus on creating the mind map.

Pricing: All platforms access for six months at $39.99 and yearly at $59.99.

 

Entertainment

Enough with the Productivity chatter; now it’s time to talk about entertainment-based apps.

 

Apple TV Plus 

You’ll like this if you’re a couch potato addicted to binge-watching.

Apple TV+ has a limited library compared to other Streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon prime, but the quality of shows is top-notch.

 

It packs high-end features like 4K resolution, HDR, and mobile downloads. It also produces phenomenal award-winning shows like Severance and The morning show.

I am currently streaming Foundation on Apple TV+, a science fiction series based on novels by Isaac Asimov. It has a gripping premise with complex & clever political intrigue. Check out Foundation if you haven’t yet!

Pricing: Apple TV+ starts at $5.99 monthly after a free seven-day trial.

 

Spotify 

Before Spotify, I was an Apple Music user but switched purely because of aesthetics.

Spotify has the most consistent UI experience across all platforms, including iOS, Android, Mac and Windows. It also makes music discovery extremely simple by recommending songs based on what you listen to.

 

One feature I like is the ability to visit an Artist’s radio page to find the best songs by that Artist.

It also lets you organise playlists to share with others. Since you have gotten to this point in the article, here is my personal Spotify playlist as a reward. 😉

Pricing: Student plan for $4.99/monthly, Individual plan for $9.99/monthly, Duo plan for $12.99/monthly, and Family plan with six accounts for $15.99/monthly.

 

Discord 

Discord is like Skype for gamers. It is a prevalent messaging, voice, and video calling platform with a wide array of features.

It allows users to join a server or create their own server where they can invite friends. Severs have voice channels where members can chat live with each other.

 

It is not targeted at enterprises but rather at regular users with its fun and quirky UX design, with tiny pop-ups and sweet cartoon characters to guide you.

Pricing: Discord is free to use for most parts. Discord Nitro is an add-on that gets you enhanced voice and video chat at $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year.

 

Photo, Music and Video Editing 

How about now I tell you about some top Mac apps beloved by the Pros?

 

Affinity Photo

Affinity Photo is an affordable alternative to Photoshop CC. It is a perfect photo editor capable of handling advanced image editing.

It is the go-to photo editing software for many photographers because of features like RAW editing, panorama stitching, HDR merge, and astrophotography stacking.

Like Photoshop, it has all the necessary tools like Layers, Layer Masks, tone mapping, and Filters.

 

The best part is that it is available for iPad and Mac devices.

Pricing: You can own Affinity Photo at $54.99 for Mac and $19.99 for an iPad

 

Garageband/Logic Pro X

Garageband is a DAW (Digital audio workstation) that comes built-in to all Apple mac devices.

It has everything a beginner needs to start producing music, from instrument lessons to a sound library. All basic features in more sophisticated DAWs like Drummer track, Time Quantization, Pitch correction, etc., are available in Garageband in a more streamlined and straightforward format.

It lets you rack up to 256 tracks within a single project and support numerous third-party plugins.

If you are a professional music producer, your ideal choice should be Logic Pro X. It is a more advanced version of Garageband aimed at pro users.

 

Logic Pro X provides more control over production with tools like Mixer, Buses, Inspector, and more.

Pricing: Garageband is free, and Logic Pro Standard edition costs $199.99.

 

Final Cut Pro X 

What is the best mac app for independent filmmakers and video editors? Needless to say, Final Cut Pro X.

Because it is software made by Apple, incredibly optimised for all Mac devices, the performance and efficiency are top-notch.

It is overstuffed with professional video editing tools and extensive plugins while still being extremely easy-to-learn software.

 

The latest version of Final Cut Pro X (10.6) has unveiled some new features: Object tracker and Cinematic Mode.

Object tracker uses machine learning to detect and track faces’ movement, allowing video editors to add effects and titles precisely. Cinematic mode lets you edit videos shot by iPhone in Cinematic mode to modify the intensity of depth effect and add keyframes to change the impact.

Pricing: You can own Final Cut Pro X for a one-time payment of $299.99. iMovie is a free alternative with basic functionality.

 

Summing Up

That’s all for now. All of these Best mac apps are designed to assist you in working more efficiently while saving time.

I would love to know what mac apps you use the most. Are there any cool Mac apps I missed? If yes, mention them in the comments below! 😄