On this page, we see the best applications for the Mac, including many already mentioned in other articles, which have been grouped and divided into categories as is also done for Windows programs. The apps are compatible with iMac, MacBook, Mac Book Air, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, Mac Pro. The problem for Macs is that in the Mac App Store it is more difficult to find free programs and often you have to look at external sites. If the price is not specified, the selected program can be downloaded for free. Below, the links to go immediately to the desired category of applications; if there are errors or links that no longer work and to report other free programs, leave a comment at the end. READ ALSO: How to install programs and applications (DMG and PKG) on Mac
| By category: | |||
| Audio | Browser | widgets | |
| Pictures and photos | Others | Utility | |
| Virtual PCs | Social and Chat | Tools | Video |
Audio
| Bowtie A customizable iTunes controller with scrobbling function from Last.fm. | ScrobblePod It manages the songs played in iTunes and on iOS devices. | Max Max is an easy-to-use audio converter that supports over 20 formats. |
| Breakaway If you remove the headphones, iTunes pauses, if you reconnect, iTunes restarts the music. | X Lossless Decoder Decode and convert various file formats without loss of audio quality including FLAC, Apple Lossless and others. | Audacity The best free and open source audio editor |
| Songbird Excellent Music player and manager of music collections for Mac | Vox A lightweight alternative music player for OS X. |
Browser
| Google Chrome Google's light and fast browser, excellent alternative to Safari. | Firefox For Firefox fans, it needs no introduction. | Opera Mac version of the Opera browser on the Mac App Store. |
| Hotspot Shield Utility to protect navigation, camouflage the IP address and avoid geographical restrictions. |
widgets
| TimeScroller To know the exact time in every city in the world. | CurrencyConverter One of the best updated widgets to convert currencies and coins on Mac OS X. | iStat Pro system monitor widget with indication of CPU status, memory, disk, network, temperature, uptime, etc. |
| The Weather Widget To have weather and weather forecast always on the desktop. | Countdown Dashboard widget Set the date and time for each event to find out how much time is left. | |
| Symbol Caddy Provides all special characters and symbols to be written |
Email client
| Mozilla Thunderbird If the Mail client does not satisfy, try Thunderbird, Mozilla's open source client. | Gmail Notifier Google app to receive notifications when a new message arrives in Gmail or for an event registered in GCal. | Notify Although no longer in development, Notify remains an elegant email application as a notification bar. |
| Spark Minimalistic email client designed to be simple and fast. |
Pictures and photos
| SketchBook Express Free, professional-level program for drawing on the Mac. | Pixelmator Great alternative to Photoshop, much easier to use and much lower cost, only 30 Dollars. | Skitch allows you to create screenshots, add annotations and share them with friends. |
| Paparazzi! A useful tool for taking screenshots of web pages. | Hugin To create panoramas and put together a mosaic of photos with a series of overlapping images. | Poladroid Create beautiful Polaroid effects on digital photos. |
| HDRtist To create HDR images easily and simply using multiple images with different exposures. | Inkscape Large and famous open source vector graphics program similar to Illustrator that uses the SVG file format. | PhotoScape X One of the best free photo and photo editors for Mac. |
Utility
| Text Expander Useful program to configure keyboard shortcuts and write faster. | Evernote Famous application to store notes and notes synchronized online. | Wunderlist For taking notes and writing to-do lists that are also saved online. |
| Anxiety Another program to create shopping lists and to-dos; syncs with iCal and Mail. | Bean A free and easy-to-use word-writing program that also reads .doc documents. | WriteRoom Word processor to write on the Mac in full screen. |
| TextWrangler Better text editor than TextEdit that also allows you to highlight text and with advanced search functions. | LibreOffice The best free alternative to Microsoft Office. | Microsoft Office for Mac Original version of Microsoft Word, Powerpoint and Excel at an expensive cost of 140 Euros. |
| Quicksilver Perhaps the best Mac launcher for launching applications. | Dropbox Synchronize and upload files to the internet to share them with other Dropbox users or to keep them always available on other computers and on your mobile phone. | Google Drive Best Dropbox alternative that allows you to sync any folder, with 15 GB free when you subscribe. |
| Do Something When It is a preferences panel of the MacOS system that allows you to set automatic actions when a certain event occurs. | Notational Velocity To save note thoughts and data in a safe and secure way, also synchronized with Dropbox and Simplenote. | Think To clear the screen of all elements not necessary for work that can distract. |
| Alfred Excellent program to quickly launch applications with shortcuts. | CloudApp To quickly share and transfer files, images, links, music, videos from Mac. | Keynote To create presentations and slideshows with special transition effects. |
| RPN Scientific Excellent scientific calculator for the Mac | ScreenSharingMenulet To connect to other Macs in remote desktop | Calendar To have the calendar always at hand from the menu bar |
| Droplr The easiest and fastest program to share images and files online | Inbox Classic Program to create To-do lists and organize things to do | DropCopy Another excellent application to send files with other people on Mac |
| Kindle for Mac The app to read Ebooks on Mac as if they were real books | Find file Program to search for files on Mac | SublimeText Excellent text file editor and programming script |
| Jumpcut Copy and paste clipboard manager | SuperDuper Program to backup and recover data if the Mac no longer turns on | Be Focused Small app to split the job into smaller tasks and set a timer for each one |
Virtual PCs
| Parallels Desktop The most powerful, the best and is the easiest to use virtualization program to use Windows inside a Mac; cost $ 79.99 | VMware Fusion Another popular virtualization application priced at $ 79.99 | VirtualBox Open source and free program to use Windows on Mac in a virtual PC; less easy to use but free. |
| WineBottler Allows you to run Windows programs and executables on OS X. | goatskin To run Windows software on Mac OS X. | Play On Mac To install some Windows programs on Mac |
| TeamViewer Best program to connect and control remotely, via the internet, other computers, even Windows, and the Mac itself |
Social, communication and Chat
| Adium Customizable, multi-protocol chat client that supports Facebook, Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo and all other chat services. | MenuTab Facebook It allows you to check Facebook updates and chat with friends directly from the menu bar. | Tweetdeck Twitter client to follow tweets and send new updates from the desktop. |
| Skype The Microsoft program for Voip calls and videochat, particularly useful for online and free teleconferences. |
Tools
| The Unarchiver To extract archives (Zip, Rar etc.), it works with practically any type of compressed file. | MenuMeters A complete set of monitoring tools for CPU, memory, disks and network. | Growl To configure notifications for near system event or for any program. |
| Little Snitch To check and administer the connections of each application; it costs $ 29.95 | Caffeine Temporarily prevents the Mac from going to sleep or starting the screensaver. | AppCleaner A very effective uninstaller that completely removes all files by cleaning up the system while uninstalling programs |
| OnyX Allows you to configure and edit hidden OS X parameters. | 1Password Excellent password manager to save and recover them at any time from the internet; it costs $ 39.99 | Burn A free solution to burn CD and DVD discs on Mac OS X. |
| Carbon Copy Cloner To backup your computer and create bootable disk images at boot in case the Mac no longer starts. | Acronis Backup best backup program for Mac (not free). | Afloat Window management application that allows you to lock windows upwards. |
| Keyboard Cleaner convenient application that temporarily disables the keyboard and mouse when you need to clean it. | BetterTouchTool Adds configurable gestures to the Magic Mouse and the Magic Trackpad. | Secrets To manage passwords on Mac. |
| Lab Tick To control the brightness of the MacBook Pro's backlit keyboard. | Hazel Create rules to automatically organize files in folders and to perform automatic actions; it costs $ 21.95 | Monolingual Removes unnecessary languages from applications, saving disk space. |
| Drop Copy The easiest way to send files over the internet. | AppFresh To keep installed applications always updated to the latest version. | CCleaner The Mac version of the famous and indispensable CCleaner program for Windows, to delete traces, histories and obsolete files. |
| Paste APp Program to better manage copy and paste, allowing you to store multiple notes to be pasted. | GeekTool A nice information display on the desktop, with clock, date, weather and much more. | Disk Inventory X The best disk space viewer on your Mac. |
Video
| Plex Best Mediacenter application for Mac. | VLC Media Player The best multi-platform video player that should never be missing on a computer. | MPlayerX Excellent alternative and competitor for VLC Player, it plays almost all video file formats with an elegant and pleasant to watch user interface. |
| Handbrake The best open source video converter. | Adapter Where Handbrake doesn't work, you can use Adapter which converts videos to flash and compresses file sizes. | Metaz Automatically update Meta-data for MP4 files. |
| Subler To easily and quickly convert video files to MPEG4 format, AppleTV playback format. | Flip4Mac Microsoft plugins to play Windows Media files (WMA and WMV) in QuickTime. | Fairmount Decrypt the contents of DVDs to play them via VLC. |
| Evom For those looking for a simple one-click video conversion solution. | Kodi Media Center to watch movies and TV from Mac. | StreamToMe Program for Windows and Mac to transmit via Wifi, video and music streaming on an iPhone or iPad, without conversions. |
| Gif Brewery Program to create GIF images from videos. |
Others
| transmissions The best program to download Torrent on Mac. | Prey Open source anti-theft program to track the location of the stolen or lost Mac that uses the webcam to take the photo of the thief and that allows you to block access to data. | Cyberduck Open source client for FTP, SFTP and WebDAV connections. |
| iAlertU Use the sensor on your MacBook to trigger an alarm when the laptop is touched or moved. | teleport To control multiple Macs with one keyboard and one mouse. | f.lux To automatically change the screen brightness based on the time of day. |
| DiskWave Free utility to determine which files and folders consume the most disk space. | Mactracker To receive detailed technical characteristics of each Mac released over the years. | Stellarium Application to explore space. |
| Sophos Home Antivirus The best free antivirus for Mac |
