As good as macOS is, you’ll need a few extra apps to get the most out of your Mac. With so many to choose from, it can be hard to know exactly what to look for. Here are the Mac apps I couldn’t be without.

1 Pixelmator Pro

Like many people, I need a decent image editing app but I don’t want to go down the Adobe route. Pixelmator Pro is the perfect solution for me. At $50, it’s the most expensive of my essential apps, yet it’s still only equivalent to five months of a Photoshop subscription and it comes with a free trial if you want to check it out before you buy.

Although it lacks some of the more advanced Photoshop features, Pixelmator Pro has what most people will need for both photo editing and vector-based graphic design work. There’s a far gentler learning curve than Photoshop, with an uncluttered interface and hundreds of Canva-style templates to get your projects started.

It also has a raft of AI features that are genuinely useful rather than gimmicky. The Super Resolution tool for enlarging images is especially impressive. Pixelmator was acquired by Apple in November 2024, so its long-term future is a little unclear, but I’d still recommend it right now.

2 Windscribe VPN

Windscribe is a VPN with a generous free plan and a very flexible upgrade option where you can build your own service based on what features you need and how much you want to pay.

As well as being highly regarded on the privacy and security fronts, and both fast and stable, the clincher for me is that it has a Chrome extension. I don’t need to keep my VPN running permanently, so it’s handy to be able to quickly switch to my backup browser whenever I need that added protection or to pretend that I’m in another country.

3 LocalSend

LocalSend is a free and open-source app that makes it easy to wirelessly share files between virtually every platform. Moving files between devices is less of a problem if you’re fully invested in the Apple ecosystem. But as an Android user, I need a third-party solution and LocalSend is by far the most reliable one I’ve found. If you use Windows or Linux, it works there too.

Two things about LocalSend stand out. One is its speed, the other is that it needs almost no setup. As long as you’ve got the app installed and running on your devices and they’re connected to the same Wi-Fi network, transferring files is as simple as selecting and sharing them.

4 IINA

If you’ve downloaded a video player on your Mac, there’s a good chance you chose VLC because it’s the most well-known. But IINA is better.

Like VLC, IINA is free and open-source, and its codec support is just as great. I prefer it in part because it’s simply much nicer to use—it looks and feels like an app designed for the Mac from the ground up. It’s fast and fluid, has a lovely minimalist interface, and has full gesture support so you can control your videos using either a trackpad or a mouse.

IINA is also feature-packed and highly customizable. It will automatically search for and download subtitles if you need them, and you can stream YouTube videos via the youtube-dl plugin, which you can use in conjunction with its Chrome and Firefox extensions. It’s an app that deserves far more attention than it gets.

5 AppCleaner

AppCleaner is a free, single-purpose app with functionality that should be built into macOS. One of the strangest things about Apple’s operating system is how bad it is at uninstalling apps. It’s simple enough to drag them into the trash, but they often leave behind residual files and folders scattered throughout your system. Adobe and Microsoft apps are particularly notorious for this, and in some cases, the leftovers can even take up quite a bit of space.

AppCleaner uninstalls Mac apps much more thoroughly. It tracks down all the files connected to the app you’re removing and deletes them in one go.

6 2FAS

Everyone should use two-factor authentication to help secure their most important websites and services. 2FAS is my choice. It’s free and open-source, and works with both iPhone and Android. On a Mac, it’s available as an extension for Safari, Firefox, or Chrome (and other Chromium-based browsers).

It’s quick to set up and to add services via QR codes. Then, when you load a site that uses 2FA, just confirm on your phone and the code will appear on your Mac screen.

7 Vivaldi Browser

Although I use Safari as my main browser, I do find it necessary to keep a Chromium-based browser on hand, just in case. Some websites or more complex web services function better in Chromium browsers, and extension support is far better than you get in Safari. I don’t want to use Chrome itself, or Microsoft Edge, so I opted for Vivaldi as one of my favorite backup browsers.

It’s a great-looking app, hugely customizable, and with a privacy-centric approach (one of the main reasons why I prefer it to Chrome). It’s also crammed with features. Some, like the built-in email client, are overkill for me; others, such as Tab Tiling which lets you view multiple tabs in the same window, are innovative and helpful.

As a browser enthusiast, I also like Brave—although you have to disable a load of junk to make it usable—and Orion, which is a WebKit browser like Safari, but with experimental support for Chrome and Firefox extensions.

8 Maccy

Maccy is an essential, free clipboard manager for Mac. It sits in the menu bar and constantly monitors your clipboard as you copy text, files, and images.

Unlike the macOS clipboard, which can only handle one item at a time, Maccy will by default save the last 200 things you copy. Despite being a small app it’s powerful and well-thought-out. You can use keyboard shortcuts for the first nine items in the list, pin any that you need regular access to, and if you’re concerned about privacy, you can limit which apps it works with.

9 Typora

As someone who does a lot of writing, a powerful yet distraction-free app with Markdown support is a must. I settled on Typora several years ago and haven’t once thought about switching. It’s a beautiful app with a minimalist design that gets out of the way and lets you focus on your work. As it formats your Markdown code on the fly, your documents always look great as well.

Despite its apparent simplicity, Typora is powerful enough for more than just straight writing. It supports images, code fences, math equations, footnotes, and more, making it the ideal app whether you’re writing a book, a college essay, or a work report.

10 Tot

Tot is the smallest app on my list and also my most used. It’s what I would describe as a short-term note-taking app. It’s located either in the Dock or the menu bar (I choose the latter) and offers seven tabbed pages into which you can type notes. And that’s it.

The typing window is deliberately small, the formatting is limited to making text bold or italic, and you never have to save anything. I use it every day to remember things, for research notes, making to-do lists, jotting down numbers, and lots more.

There’s so much great software for macOS, from simple but useful menu bar apps to premium but affordable pro-level software. I keep all of these apps on my Mac and use them every day, for both professional and personal use. And if you want even more ideas, check out our list of essential Mac apps for new users.