A curated list of awesome applications, softwares, tools and shiny things for macOS.
Items marked with
are open-source software and link to the source code. Items marked with
are free (as in free beer).
Table of Contents
- Applications
- Command Line Utilities
- macOS Utilities
- Setup
- Security
- Miscellaneous
- Discussion Forums
- Contribute
Applications
Audio
- Audacity - Free, open source, cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds.
- Audio Hijack - Record audio from any application like iTunes, Skype or Safari, or from hardware devices like microphones and mixers.
- BackgroundMusic - Record system audio, control audio levels for individual apps, and automatically pauses your music player when other audio starts playing and unpauses it afterwards.
- Mixxx - Free DJ software that gives you everything you need to perform live mixes, veritable alternative to Traktor.
- VOX Player - Play numerous lossy and lossless audio formats.
- XLD - Rip/Decode/convert/play various "lossless" audio files.
Bookmark Utilities
- ReadKit - Have all your Instapaper, Pocket, etc. feeds in one place even when you're offline.
- Spillo - Powerful, beautiful and fast Pinboard client.
Chat Clients
- ChitChat - A native Mac app wrapper for WhatsApp Web.
- Colloquy - A GUI IRC Client.
- Goofy - Unofficial Facebook Messenger client.
- LimeChat - Instant messaging application.
- Messenger for Desktop - An app for Facebook messenger.
- Profanity - A terminal XMPP client.
- Slack - A messaging app for teams.
- Telegram - A messaging app with a focus on speed and security, it’s super fast, simple and free.
- Textual 5 - An Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client.
- WeeChat - A terminal IRC client.
Data Recovery
- Data Rescue - Comprehensive and professional data recovery for a multitude of scenarios.
- DiskWarrior - Recover from filesystem corruptions when Disk Utility is out of options.
Developers
- Base 2 - A GUI for managing SQLite databases.
- Cakebrew - The Homebrew GUI App.
- Charles - Charles is a Proxy that allow you to view all of the HTTP and HTTPS traffic.
- CocoaRestClient - An app for testing REST endpoints.
- Dash - An API Documentation Browser and Code Snippet Manager.
- dlite - The simplest way to use Docker on macOS.
- Gas Mask - A simple hosts file manager which allows editing of host files and switching between them.
- gitbar - Open source github contribution stats on your Menu Bar.
- GitHub Desktop - A GUI for using GitHub.
- GitUp - A simple but powerful Git macOS app.
- Hosts - Edit hosts file.
- ImageAlpha - Apply lossy compression on PNG files with or without transparency for more efficient files.
- ImageOptim - Makes images take up less disk space and load faster.
- Insomnia - A modern REST client with a beautiful interface.
- Integrity - Easily find your website's broken links.
- Kaleidoscope - Powerful diff and merge application supporting text, images, and folders.
- Paw - The ultimate REST client.
- Postgres.app - The easiest way to get started with PostgreSQL.
- PSequel - A PostgreSQL GUI tool.
- QorumLogs - Swift Logging Utility for Xcode & Google Docs.
- Quiver - A delightful notebook for programmers that allows mixing rich text, code, markdown, LaTeX, and graphs.
- Sequel Pro - A MySQL database manager.
- Sip - A simple color picker for developers.
- SnippetsLab - Manage and organise snippets of code.
- SourceTree - A free Git & Mercurial client.
- StarUML - A sophisticated software modeler.
- Tower - The most powerful Git client.
- Unused - An app for checking Xcode projects for unused resources.
- Vagrant Manager - Manage your vagrant machines in one place with Vagrant Manager for macOS.
- WWDC - The WWDC app.
- Zsh - A powerful command line shell.
E-Book Utilities
- Calibre - Incredibly ugly but powerful software for ebook management and conversion.
- Kindle App - Amazon Kindle App for macOS.
- Sigil - Multi-platform ePub editor.
Editors
- Atom - The hackable text editor.
- Brackets - A modern text editor that understands web design.
- Emacs - Port of Emacs to work as an macOS app.
- Light Table - A customizable editor with REPL support for Clojure, JavaScript, Python and others.
- MacVim - Vim, the text editor.
- Sublime Text 3 - The sophisticated text editor.
- TextMate - A graphical text editor.
- VimR - Vim, refined.
- Visual Studio Code - Build and debug modern web and cloud applications.
Email Utilities
- Airmail - Lightning fast email client designed for El Capitan.
- MailMate - Advanced IMAP email client, featuring extensive keyboard control and Markdown support.
- Nylas N1 - An extensible, open source mail client with custom plugin support.
Finder
- ForkLift - File Manager and FTP/SFTP/WebDAV/Amazon S3 client.
- Path Finder - A powerful dual-pane browser alternative to Finder.
- Quicklook-Plugins - List of extra quicklook plugins to enable previewing more filetypes in the Finder.
- TotalFinder - A powerful alternative to Finder.
- XtraFinder - Adds useful features to Finder.
Games
- Battle for Wesnoth - Turn-based tactical strategy game, featuring both single-player and online multiplayer combat.
- Boxer - The DOS game emulator that’s fit for your Mac.
- Dolphin - A powerful, Open Source emulator for Nintendo GameCube and Wii games.
- OpenEmu - Multiple Video Game System.
- Screentendo - Turn your screen into a playable level of Mario.
- Stockfish - Beautiful, powerful chess application.
Graphics
- Acorn - A very Mac-like image editor with a comprehensive feature set.
- Affinity Designer - Vector image design tool, possible Adobe Illustrator alternative.
- Affinity Photo - Raster image design tool, possible Adobe Photoshop alternative.
- Blender - Fully-featured extensible cross-platform 3D content suite.
- GIPHY Capture - Capture and share GIFs on the desktop.
- Image2icon - Create and personalize icons from your pictures.
- OmniGraffle - An app for creating precise, beautiful graphics.
- Pixelmator - Powerful image editor, possible Photoshop alternative.
- Sketch - Hybrid vector/bitmap layout application, especially useful for UI, web and mobile design.
- Sketch Toolbox - A super simple plugin manager for Sketch.
- xScope - Tools for measuring, inspecting and testing on-screen graphics and layouts.
Productivity
- Alfred - Boosts your efficiency and productivity.
- BetterTouchTool - Configure gestures for mouse and actions for keyboard shortcuts.
- ClipMenu - ClipBoard History Manager.
- CloudClip - Sync your clipboard between your Mac and your iOS devices.
- f.lux - Automatically adjust your computer screen to match lighting.
- Fantastical 2 - Complete Calendar app replacement which uses natural language for creating events.
- Hazel - Create rules to automatically keep your files organized.
- HazeOver - Turn distractions down and focus on your current task.
- HyperDock - Select individual application window.
- Instant Translate - Translate speech and text between 100+ languages from the menu bar.
- Karabiner - A powerful keyboard customizer.
- Keytty - Enables you to control your mouse with a few key strokes. Mouse Keys Alternative.
- LaunchBar - Start applications, navigate folders, manipulate files, control your Mac and much more just by using the keyboard.
- MWeb - Pro Markdown writing, note taking and static blog generator App.
- noti - Display a notification after a terminal process finishes.
- OmniFocus - An incredible task management platform for Mac, iPad, and iPhone.
- OmniOutliner - Perfect for collecting information, outlining ideas, adding structure to any sort of writing, and much more.
- Paste - The new way to copy & paste for Mac.
- PopClip - Instantly copy & paste, access actions like search, spelling, dictionary and more.
- Quicksilver - Control your Mac quickly and elegantly.
- SelfControl - Bclock access to distracting websites.
- Telephone - A SIP softphone. Make phone calls over the Internet or your company’s network.
- TextExpander - Create custom keyboard shortcuts for frequently-used text and pictures.
- Todoist - Cross-platform to-do manager with mobile apps, great UI and has some optional premium features.
Sharing Files
- BitTorrent Sync - Multi platform sync tool using BitTorrent protocol.
- CloudApp - Capture and share files and screenshots instantly.
- Jumpshare - Real-time file sharing app with support for instantly sharing code / Markdown, annotating screenshots, screen recording, and voice recording.
- mac2imgur - Upload images and screenshots to Imgur.
- Syncthing - Multi-platform, secure, decentralized sync tool.
- Transmission - Simple, lightweight, multi-platform torrent client.
Terminal
- iTerm 2 - A terminal emulator.
- TotalTerminal - A system-wide terminal available on a hot-key.
Utilities
- 1Password - Password Manager and Secure Wallet.
- Amphetamine - Prevents macOS from automatically going to sleep, with lots of configurations.
- AnyBar - A menubar status indicator.
- AppCleaner - Uninstall your apps easily.
- Arthur - Safely optimize some of your Mac's hidden settings.
- Bartender - Organize your menu bar apps.
- Batch Image Resizer - Resize a large number of images quickly on your computer.
- BeardedSpice - Control web based media players with the media keys found on Mac keyboards.
- BetterZip - A very capable and full-featured archive manager.
- BitBar - Display output of any script to the menu bar.
- Burn - No-nonsense burning of Data/Audio/Video CDs and DVDs, including copying.
- Caret - Very capable markdown editor.
- CheatSheet - Know your short cuts.
- CommandQ - Never accidentally quit an app again.
- ControlPlane - Automate running tasks based on where you are or what you do.
- DaisyDisk - Analyze disk usage and free up disk space.
- Deliveries - Beautiful and simple package tracking.
- DisableMonitor - Easily disable or enable a monitor on your Mac.
- EtreCheck - Output system information and configuration to get more informed help from Apple support professionals.
- Finicky - App that allows you to set rules that decide which browser is opened for every link.
- Fluid - Turn web applications into Mac applications.
- gfxCardStatus - Menu bar app to monitor and switch between integrated and discrete GPUs on MacBook Pro.
- Helium - A floating browser window that allows you to watch media while you work.
- InsomniaX - Prevents macOS from automatically going to sleep (on lid closing or idle timeout).
- iStat Menus - An advanced system monitor for your menubar.
- Kawa - A better input source switcher with shortcuts.
- KeePassX - A free, open source, and light-weight password manager.
- KeepingYouAwake - Menu bar utility that prevents Mac from going to sleep.
- Keka - Compress to and extract from many archive file formats.
- Knock - Unlock your Mac quickly and securely.
- LastPass - Password Manager and secure digital records in Secure Notes.
- LaunchControl - Create, manage and debug launchd services.
- Loading - See when apps are using your network in your Mac menubar.
- Little Snitch - Protect your privacy.
- MacDown - Markdown editor.
- Mackup - Keep your application settings in sync.
- MacPass - Password Manager.
- Media Converter - Simple (drag and drop) but advanced media conversion.
- Menubar Colors - Convenient access to the system color panel.
- MenuMeters - A set of CPU, memory, disk, and network monitoring tools for macOS.
- Monodraw - A powerful ASCII art editor.
- Noizio - Ambient sound equalizer for relaxation or productivity.
- Notational Velocity - Store, retrieve and sync notes within a minimal GUI.
- Numi - Beautiful calculator app.
- OnyX - Multifunction utility to verify disks and files, run cleaning and system maintenance tasks, configure hidden options and more.
- Paparazzi - A small utility that makes screenshots of webpages.
- Paragon NTFS - World fastest NTFS driver.
- Radio Silence - Simple to use firewall and network monitor.
- Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client - Remote Desktop Connection Client lets you connect from your Macintosh computer to a Windows-based computer.
- Site Sucker - Automatically download websites from the Internet.
- ShiftIt - Managing windows size and position.
- SlowQuitApps - Prevent accidental Cmd-Q.
- SmartCapsLock - Makes the Caps Lock key smarter, so that when the key accidentally gets activated and you START YELLING even though you don't want to, you can just select the yelling-text and press the key again to instantly fix its case instead of typing everything all over again.
- Soulver - Beautiful expressive calculator.
- SSH Tunnel - Manage your SSH tunnels, tightly integrated with macOS Keychain, secure and intuitive.
- Subtitles - Automatically downloads subtitles for your movies and TV shows.
- TeamViewer - Remotely control another computer.
- TextBar - TextBar is a tiny but powerful app that lets you add any text to your MenuBar.
- Typeeto - Lets you use your Mac's keyboard as a bluetooth keyboard to type on another devices.
- Typora - Another minimal Markdown editor.
- Ukelele - Unicode Keyboard Layout Editor.
- Übersicht - Run system commands and display their output on your desktop as widgets.
- The Unarchiver - Unarchive many different kinds of archive files.
- VirtualBox - Powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use, free alternative to VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop.
- Wineskin - Run Windows applications and games on your Mac.
Video
- HandBrake - High performance video encoding and conversion tools with a nice GUI.
- MPlayerX - Media player.
- mpv - Media player.
- ScreenFlow - Screencasting and video editing software.
- Subler - Mux and tag MP4 files.
- Subtitlr - Drag and drop subititle download utility.
Window Management
- Amethyst - Window manager (automatically keep windows sized in grids).
- Divvy Window Manager - Window management for tiling your windows.
- Hammerspoon - Extremely powerful scripting engine for macOS.
- kwm - Tiling window manager with focus follows mouse.
- Moom - Move and zoom windows, super light weight and customizable.
- Spectacle - Easily organize windows without using a mouse.
- Stay - Resize/position windows when displays change.
- Zooom/2 - Mac window management.
Others
- [Clocker] (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/clocker-menubar-world-clock/id1056643111?ls=1&mt=12) - Check time in multiple timezones from your Mac menubar.
- Aerial - Apple TV Aerial Screensaver for Mac.
- Catch - The easiest way to use ShowRSS.
- gInbox - gInbox is a wrapper made for Mac around Inbox by Gmail.
- hacker-menu - Hacker News Delivered to Desktop.
- Hacky - Hacky provides browsing Hacker News in a clean and minimalistic way.
- PopKey - Allows easy access to animated GIFs from the Mac menu bar.
- Sonora - A minimal, beautifully designed music player.
- SoundCleod - A browser for SoundCloud.
- Transmit - A FTP client.
- Vienna - RSS/Atom newsreader.
Command Line Utilities
- Awesome macOS Command Line - Use your macOS terminal shell to do awesome things.
- m-cli - Swiss Army Knife for Mac OS X
- Mac-CLI - OS X command line tools for developers
- Mac macOS Manual Pages - Apple's official man page reference which lists all general commands in Section 1.
macOS Utilities
- Bluetooth Debug Menu - Factory reset devices and more.
- Command Line Utilities Part 1
- Command Line Utilities Part 2
- EnvPane - An preference pane for environment variables.
- Glances - System monitoring tool that runs in terminal.
- Thread on StackExchange
Setup
laptop
mac-dev-setup
macOS 10.9 Mavericks Setup
- https://gist.github.com/kevinelliott/3135044
- https://gist.github.com/kimmobrunfeldt/350f4898d1b82cf10bce
macOS 10.10 Yosemite Setup
macOS 10.11 El Capitan Setup
Security
- GPG Suite - Full GPG toolkit with easy to understand GUI applications and Mail.app plugin.
- macchanger by acrogenesis - Easily change your MAC Address
- macchanger by shilch - Change / spoof MAC address on macOS / OS X (random, custom and restore).
- MIDAS - Intrusion Detection Analysis System.
- OS-X-Security-and-Privacy-Guide
- OSXCollector - Forensic evidence collection & analysis toolkit.
- santa - A binary whitelisting/blacklisting system.
- Tunnelblick - Easy to use OpenVPN client and GUI.
- VeraCrypt - Free and open source disk encryption software.
- Viscosity - Fully-featured OpenVPN client, ready for enterprise deployment.
Miscellaneous
Discussion Forums
Apple
IRC channels
MacRumors
Contribute
Contributions are most welcome, please adhere to the contribution guidelines.
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.