Mac

Best Apps for Mac in 2024

Announced at the 2024, macOS Sonoma now be installed in its final version and will be available in the year as a free upgrade. It adds a few things that make it better to use your Mac. These include the News app that informs you of the latest and the Home app that allows you to easily control HomeKit devices. Even with these and other Apple apps, you may have a need that no native app can help or do so at its best. Then you need to consider installing the best apps for Mac in 2024. What are these apps? Here is a look at the ones you should definitely have on your Mac!

Best Apps for Mac 2024

1. CleanMyMac X

Keeping your Mac clean and free from useless files that just take up space without any use will improve its performance. You can clean up the junk manually but that is just too tiring. Try the CleanMyMac X app and it will do all the clean up for you so your Mac is always optimized and speed up its actions.

Cleanmymac X in macOS Mojave

The interface of this app can simply be described as self-explanatory. The icons are arranged nicely and labeled for easy use. Just click on what you would like to clean up and let the app do the rest. The two-click cleanup is what makes many macOS 10.15 Catalina users love it.

Clean up both your System and App Junk

The CleanMyMac X application scans through each and every folder in your Mac and safely cleans up the Mac. It only leaves what you need and a single copy of all your documents. From old photos to useless language files to mail attachments to iTunes junk, this app will sniff out what is useless and clean it up. This smart cleaner does all the cleaning without harming any important system files.

Cleanmymac Menu

This application will also help you keep the Mac optimized through health monitoring and maintenance. Uninstall an application and it will help you get rid of all the files it came with leaving nothing behind. You can also repair disk permissions and control add-ons and plug-ins from one simple interface.

2. Airmail

If you hate sluggish mail applications then you will love this app. This app is so good that it won the Apple Design Award at the WWDC 17. The interface of this app is truly intuitive. It looks great and feels like a native Mac application. It is very clean and getting to your mails is super easy.

Airmail

This software is great because it will be useful no matter what email it is that you use. It supports Live.com, Outlook.com, Yahoo, AOL, IMAP, Gmail, MS Exchange and iCloud.

Airmail is unlike any other mail client out there. It is very fast and does much more than other mail clients. For instance, it helps in composing emails; you can compose an email in HTML or markdown. This ensures that your emails are perfect and professional looking. To help get your work done with ease, this application allows users to classify mails as “to do”, “Memo” or “Done”. You never have to say, “Oops! I forgot that.” Airmail got you covered.

Airmail 3 software only costs $9.99. it is available on the Mac App Store.

3. Fantastical 2

Get organized with this awesome calendar app that is ideal for everyone. A simple and beautiful interface is what meets you when you open this app. Whether you choose the light or dark theme, you will like this application. There is a quick access mini window located in the menu bar for convenience. You can also drag this mini window and place it wherever you want.

Fantastical 2 Apps

This calendar app will do the basics like tell you the time and date and much more. You can use this as your personal diary and organize your time. Simply write, in natural language, what events and reminders you would like to set.

This app supports all the time zones, even floating time zones. Users can even set geofence alerts. Even if you need to use more than one calendar, this app has calendar sets you will find useful. Better yet, switching between these calendars is really easy.

Fantastical 2 supports other calendars so users can merger all their accounts in one. These include iCloud, Microsoft Exchange, Yahoo and Google. Fantastical 2 is sold at $49.99 but is also available as a free download for a trial period lasting 21days.

4. Paragon NTFS for Mac

If you share files with Windows PCs then you will need this software. It is a program that makes it possible to use NTFS drives on Mac; a function that is not natively supported.

Paragon NTFS for Mac

This program is outstandingly designed with its design borrowing heavily from Apple’s disk utility. This means that if you have previously used this utility you will find Paragon NTFS very easy to use.

This program not only makes it possible to read and write on NTFS files on MacOS Mojave but do so at blazing speeds. With it you can delete, edit, rename, read and create new files on any NTFS drive.

NTFS drives are automatically mounted on Macs that have the Paragon NTFS installed. There is no need to restart the Mac every time you mount a new drive. All volume mounted on your Mac will be monitored and repaired by this software to ensure optimal performance.

The single use Paragon NTFS license costs $19.95. Before you pay, you can try this software free for 10 days.

5. Parallels Desktop

Ever wanted to run Windows on Mac? You can do that with Parallels Desktop! Even if you would like to try other operating systems like Ubuntu or Linux you can do so. You will have two operating systems running in parallel on your Mac.

Windows 10 in Parallels Desktop

The super simple interface is very easy to use. Set up only takes minutes and there after all actions can be easily done.



Windows Installation Assistant

With Parallels Desktop, you can open Windows like any other app on your Mac. Imagine having Windows 10 and macOS Mojave running side by side! You will have the best of both sides.

Parallels is fast and light. This means that it runs the other operating system without affecting your Mac’s performance. Even Window’s power hungry applications like Photoshop and games will not make your Mac sluggish.

Windows can be opened in full screen for a fully-immersive experience. For easy and fast access, add Windows applications to the Touch Bar.

Windows 10 Configuration

Users are able to connect devices and use other connectivity options with the Windows virtual machine. You can even print documents directly from it as well as share items with the Mac.

There is a 14-day free trial offered on the Parallels Desktop application. After this time elapses you will be required to pay $79.99 for a new license or 449.99 or an upgrade.

6. HandBrake

What happens when you have a video in one format but only have a player that can play other formats? The best thing to do is convert the video to a supported format. This is where Hand Brake comes in!

HandBrake App

At a glance, this interface has a lot on it. Though it looks cluttered the many clear options make it very easy to use the program. Using Hand Brake you can convert videos from any format to a modern format that is widely supported. You can do the conversion on one file at a time or queue several for processing at a time.

There are several video filters you can add to your videos including Grayscale, Scaling, Denoise, Decomb, Deinterlacing and cropping. HandBrake is offered as an open-source video transcoder which means that it is a free app.

7.VLC Media Player

In order to enjoy watching movies and music videos and audios you need a reliable media player. VLC is the answer! Since it was launched, VLC has been known for its simple and minimalistic design. This simplicity takes away complexity from playing favorite media files so you can just enjoy what you want to watch or listen to.

VLC Media Player

VLC plays various media in different formats. It can play from various sources including discs, webcams, files, streams and devices. Among the supported codecs are WMV, MP3, WebM, MKV, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 to name but a few.

Users can customize VLC by changing its skins and installing extensions. The VLC media player is absolutely free!

8.The Unarchiver

It is not uncommon to come across archived or compressed documents. To open these you need the Unarchiver. The main aim of this app is to reduce the time it takes to open archived files and the interface is symbolic of this in its simplicity. Using this program is very easy.


The Unarchiver

With Unarchiver, opening RAR and other archived documents is made possible. It supports many archive formats including some popular ones like Zip and RAR as well as the old and unusual ones.

With this app in your Mac, all archived files will be opened automatically. You will never see the “unsupported format” alert again! This software is free and has no in-app purchases.

9. Evernote

Taking notes on your Mac should be very easy and convenient. Evernote makes this possible. The Evernote interface is quite busy with notebooks in the left margin. To its right is a notes column while the actual note is placed at the far right end. You can customize these looks as you wish. Creating a new note is very easy. There is a formatting toolbar that makes this app look just like the familiar Microsoft Office.

Evernote

Other than inputing notes by typing, users can also make voice notes. Pictures can also be taken and added to notes. You can also import different files from Google Drive and other storages.

Sorting notebooks is very easy with the tagging feature while in-note content is searchable. Notebooks can be shared with other people for collaboration purposes. Evernote stores all your notes on cloud and hence can be accessed from various devices.

There are three Evernote packages namely the basic which is free, the premium that costs $7.99 per month and the Business that costs $14.99 per user per month.

10. Office 365 for Mac

When you need to get some work done you know Microsoft Office is the answer. Designed for the Mac office 365 for Mac has all the features you need. The interface of this software combines the best of Mac features and MS Office features in one simple interface. This is made up of menu tabs within each one will find relevant functions in the form of a ribbon toolbar and work space.

Microsoft Word for Mac

In the Office 365 package, there are various programs that will help you do various office activities. These are Word for creating and reviewing documents, Excel for visualizing and analyzing numbers, PowerPoint for creating presentations, Onenote which is a notebook and Outlook; an email and calendar program that helps you stay organized.

There are many offline and online templates that make it very easy to create professional documents. Text and graphics on documents look sharp thanks to the Mac’s retina display.

Office 365 is available for Home, Personal and even students’ packages. These cost $99.99 per year, 469.99 per year and $149.99 one-off purchase respectively.

11. LibreOffice

Are Office suite software too expensive for you? Try the free LiberOffice! LibreOffice has a clean interface that is really easy to use. On the left side of the screen are the menu items whereas the recently opened documents are seen on the right. When a document is opened, it looks just like in Office. The menu design looks like the one in Old MS Office with menus that open up to show various submenus. Keyboard shortcuts can be used for various actions.

LibreOffice for Mac

There are three programs in the LibreOffice suite. These are the Writer which is the equivalent of MS Office Word, Calc that is like MS Excel, impress that is the equivalent of MS Publisher, Draw that is like Microsoft Paint, Base that is like MS Access and Math that deals with equations and formula editors.

Writer Document

Though the looks are not very modern, the functionality of LibreOffice is quite great. There are various tools that aid in the creation and editing of various kinds of documents. This is open-source software that is absolutely free.

12. Adobe Acrobat Pro

Portable Document Format (PDF) is the new norm replacing the need for hard copy documents in office and personal spaces. The best PDF software for Mac is the Adobe Acrobat Pro.

Adobe Acrobat Pro

The interface is really nice and easy to navigate. There is a home tab that gives a quick access to recent documents. There is a Tools box that can be used to search for open a tool you need. There is a modern toolbar at the top of the open Acrobat window. To make this even more interesting, theinterface is touch-enabled in its entirety.

Acrobat is the King pin in PDF documents handling with all the right features. Users can create PDF documents through various means such as converting images, scanned images, web pages and converting from other file formats. Editing PDFs can be easily done even without the need to retype.

One of the downsides of the Adobe Acrobat Pro is the price. It is really pricy being sold at $14.99 per month.

13. iDrive

Your Mac’s local storage may not be enough. The best way to supplement this pr store a backup of what you have on your drive, you need cloud storage. A good choice is the iDrive. This cloud-based service has a nice interface that is easy to use.

iCloud provides you with cloud storage space that is enough just for you. The various packages available cater for personal use as well as small businesses. This cloud storage not only provides storage but this storage is secure and protected from any ransomware attacks. Snapshots and virtualization protect the stored data from disasters that can lead to data loss.

This cloud storage not only provides storage but this storage is secure and protected from any ransomware attacks. Snapshots and virtualization protect the stored data from disasters that can lead to data loss.

Other than backing up your Mac’s data, iCloud also allows the backing up of mobile data. Various devices can be backed up using one account. There are many other features that make this backup plan perfect. You even get hard copy shipping in case of data loss.

There are three iCloud packages. The Basic package is free and provides users with up to 5GB storage. The other is the iDrive Personal that costs $52.12 per year for storage of up to 2TB and storage of up to 5TB costing $74.62 per year.

14. DaisyDisk

A hard drive that is too full is a big enemy to your Mac’s performance. You need to know what is taking up too much space on the drive and DaisyDisk do that. DaisyDisk is simply beautiful! The colorful wheel color-codes your hard drive and tells you what exactly is taking up what space on the drive. Everything that surrounds the disk is self-explanatory and hence using this supplication will be very easy.

DaisyDisk on Mojave

This is a disk management utility like no other. It gives an overview of the disks connected to the Mac. You will see how much free space there is in each and other details. To get a map of the disk showing all folders and files and the space they occupy, simply click on the disk. Using this information, it is easy to notice files that take up too much space and clear them.

You can buy the DaisyDisk software for $9.99. If you are not convinced, try this app free before paying for it.

15. TeamViewer

When you want to share things with your colleagues or friends, TeamViewer is the application you need. The interface is stylish and modern to say the least. It is professional and perfect for professional use.

TeamViewer

Using TeamViewer, people can control what is happening on remote computers. You can control your home computer from office or any other location using this app. Computers can even be woken up, restarted and even apps installed remotely.

This app can be used to connect mobile devices and even computers. Files can be shared using the various file sharing options. Even remote printing is possible. Using the group policy, many users can be invited and view what is happening on the primary computer. TeamViewer can also integrate many other software and programs like ticketing, help desk and management systems.

The security of all connected users is ensured with various licenses and permissions restrictions.

Bottom Line

There you have it; the best Mac Apps. Install these on your Mac and you will enjoy the cool features the macOS Sonoma has to offer even more. All these are applications that you will find useful in one way or the other.

1 Comment

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