When you open your Mac for the first time, you already have everything you need to get started. While the macOS includes various applications for work and entertainment, there are lots of third-party programs for Mac that can be useful additions to your workflow. In this post, we want to highlight nine must-have Mac apps, which deserve your attention.
Spotify
Currently, Spotify ranks #1 in the iTunes Music category. So if you are looking for a music app for your Mac, Spotify is a good option. The app allows you to:
- Listen to various artists, radio, podcasts, and different playlists on Spotify online.
- Combine millions of old and new tracks to create your playlists. Then you can share them with friends from FaceBook via other social media, and so on.
- Listen to Spotify online for free with ads or select a subscription plan and enjoy your favorite music without ads. Also, the paid service allows you to download tracks so you can play your music without an internet connection. Subscription plans start at $4.99 per month for students.
- Download the Spotify Mac desktop client from the official website or use the Spotify web browser online.
Spotify is an intuitive service, which adapts to the particular style of each user. Based on your preferences, Spotify compiles playlists according to your favorite music, making this our favorite Spotify feature.
MacCleaner Pro
MacCleaner Pro is an essential application for everyone who takes care of his Mac computer. It allows you to clean up and speed up a Mac safely, quickly, and efficiently. Even if System Data is taking most space on your hard drive, with MacCleaner Pro you can find unneeded system junk and recover valuable disk space. Here is a shortlist of what you can do with MacCleaner Pro:
- Remove caches and other junk files
- Find duplicate files
- Completely uninstall applications
- Analyze disk space usage
- Free up RAM
- And more
MacCleaner Pro provides all the necessary options for keeping your Mac clean, fast, optimizing storage usage, and analyzing what is taking the most space on your disk.
Google Drive
Google Drive is a cloud storage provider, which was launched in 2012 and already has more than one billion users. If you have not yet used this service, here are a few ways it can be utilized:
- Save files from Google Docs or upload your documents, presentations, photos, videos, and more to your Google Drive storage account.
- Share your files with other Google account users. Then you can grant access to view, comment, or edit a file.
- Synchronize your files among devices by downloading the Backup and Sync application for Mac from the web. With this tool, it’s easy to use your Google Drive data on your computer and synchronize changes, both online and on your device.
- You will get 15 GB of cloud storage space for free. Once the free storage space is filled, you can purchase 100 GB for $19.99 per year
By saving your important information to Google Drive, it’s conveniently available and easy to share with other users. The ability to collaborate with other users via file sharing is one of the main reasons why you should try this app on your Mac.
VPN Client
The VPN Client software tool is a must-have because it is one of the most effective ways to keep your online privacy safe. Using a VPN provides the following advantages:
- You can be sure that all your transmitted data is encrypted, making it unreadable and protected from any third party. The VPN Client app for Mac uses the 256-bit encryption key, which is presently the most reliable method of encryption. Therefore, while you surf the net, your online activity is not recognizable.
- Location-based restrictions can be avoided by connecting to a server in a particular country. For example, Twitter and lots of other social media and online services are banned in China. While traveling there, simply connect to one of the USA locations to freely use the net.
- A free evaluation is available by downloading VPN Client from the App Store. You can use it free for a week and then select one of the subscription plans. The most attractive is a 12-month subscription plan for $39.99.
Using the VPN Client app protects your private information. It is especially important while using public wi-fi in airports, cafes, hotels, and so on.
Slack
The Slack app allows online teams to collaborate within virtual workspaces and provides for faster communication. Using the Slack desktop app on your Mac, you can:
- Create channels for discussion, file sharing, and voice or video calls in various chats.
- Invite not only your colleagues to your channel but also your clients, partners, or vendors.
- Set keywords to see a notification badge when they are mentioned in your channels.
- Integrate over 1500 apps into Slack to make your communication more convenient.
Download Slack for Mac for free with some limits, or choose one of the subscription plans, starting from $8 per month per active user.
Using Slack messaging eliminates the need to send internal emails. You can interact with your team in a much easier way in shared or private channels via the Slack app for Mac.
Trello
Trello is a useful list-making app that makes managing team workflow more efficient. This Mac application helps you to stay informed and define the workflow among all participants of a particular task. You can use Trello to:
- Create boards to organize and define your work process.
- Attach files from within Trello, your computer, cloud storage or sharable links.
- Add members to your cards, add checklists, and set the date and time to prioritize tasks for you and others.
- Select one of the Power-Ups to make the interaction with board members more efficient.
- Use Trello for free or select a subscription plan, starting with $9.99 per user per month for extra features.
Trello boards give you a comprehensive view of all stages of the project you are involved in. At any point in the workflow, you can clearly understand who is working on a certain task. Using Trello is easy and quite handy for business or private purposes.
Franz
After you have installed and are happily using all the essential productivity apps, Franz makes sure notifications are not overlooked. It gathers notifications from all apps into one program. Look at these advantages that the Franz app provides:
- You can add as many apps as you need from the 71 programs that Franz currently supports. The most popular services, like Gmail, WhatsApp, Twitter, Messenger, Slack, and Skype, are already compatible with Franz.
- Each time you get a notification from one of the added apps, you can reply to it from within Franz. So, for a quick answer, there is no need to open each program individually.
- The Free License is good enough, but you can also select a Premium License for nearly $5 per month with additional benefits.
Franz is a handy software tool that keeps all important messages in one place and allows users to promptly respond to them.
VLC
VLC media player for Mac is a free and simple software tool. It is a good idea to have the VLC for Mac in case your media player cannot open certain types of files. It is especially useful with old types of files, like Video CDs or DVDs. Here are some facts about the VLC player for Mac:
- You can open video, music, and photos using VLC.
- It runs nearly all video and audio formats and also supports streaming. The most common formats include H.264, MPEG-4, DivX, MPEG-2, MP4, AVI, MOV, FLV, WMV, MP3, WMA, FLAC, AAC, OGG, and WAV.
- You can use the Playback options and synchronize subtitles.
- It has a very simple interface and is completely free.
The VLC player is a must, as one day it’s likely you will want to watch your childhood videos.
GIMP
GIMP is a free image-editing program. Compared with other free photo editors, it has more features, but it is easier to use, unlike lots of paid programs. Here’s what you should know about the GIMP app:
- You can use it to make simple things like painting or photo retouching, as well as for more complex actions like animation or image format converting.
- It supports different files formats like BMP, GIF, JPEG, PDF, PNG, PSD, SVG, TIFF, and many others.
- It also allows you to add new capabilities or functionality, using C, C++, Perl, Python, Scheme, and other programming languages.
- You can download the GIMP app for Mac for free.
GIMP is a good photo editing software tool for Macs specifically. You can use all GIMP features and also add various plug-ins to create new file formats and effect filters.
Duplicate File Finder
The longer you use various apps, the more files you create. Over time, your Mac will become full of useful files and their useless copies. Duplicate File Finder for Mac keeps your disk space from becoming cluttered. Using Duplicate File Finder on your computer, you are able to:
- Detect and delete the duplicates of photos, music, videos, documents, whole folders and archives.
- Scan a single folder, your Mac disk, external or cloud storage accounts to find useless duplicates.
- Find similar folders and then merge them to save unique files and get rid of copies.
- Use the free Duplicate File Finder version to delete duplicates, or select the Pro version for $9.99 to manage similar folders as well.
If you remove duplicate files from your Mac regularly, not only will your files be better organized, but your Mac will perform better, too. That is why Duplicate File Finder is also a must-have Mac software tool for your daily use.
Conclusion
Some of the programs provided in this post are trusted tools with lots of happy users, while others are newer but very good. We recommend trying all of them, as you can test their free versions or use them for free permanently. We hope to hear your feedback about your favorite Mac apps under this article.
