Best Apps 2014 For Mac Rating: 7,9/10 7607 reviews

Utility • July 14, 2020

Macs are known for their performance and simplicity. However, they’re also great at improving productivity. Apple’s App Store is full of apps that can help you with anything you are doing on a Mac.

Macos x users blank software to. Full Specifications What's new in version 1.1Updated package installer to allow installation for all users, or for the current user.GeneralPublisherPublisher web siteRelease DateJanuary 02, 2010Date AddedJanuary 02, 2010Version1.1CategoryCategorySubcategoryOperating SystemsOperating SystemsMac OS X 10.5 Intel/10.6 IntelAdditional Requirements.

Did you ever have a problem figuring out how to do something on a Mac?

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Productivity isn’t easily achieved, however, with the apps we’ve listed below – you’ll get a lot of help that will improve the way you use and work on a Mac.

We’ll also share some of the tips and benefits behind the productivity increase so you can know what to expect!

Eliminating Distraction and Increasing Productivity

Distraction is often related to productivity. Why?

If you are easily distracted on your Mac, you won’t be able to stay productive. And if you aren’t productive, you’ll have to work twice as long to complete and check something off your to-do list.

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But what can you expect when you increase productivity?

You can expect:

  • Faster task completion
  • Less time spent on certain tasks
  • Easier track keeping of workload
  • Less distraction and a better way of thinking
  • Smarter way of approaching and dealing with tasks

These are just some of the benefits. However, the most crucial benefit is faster task completion.

What if you were able to do something that usually took you 2 hours in an hour or less? This would help you work faster and do more work in a certain time frame.

This is very helpful for people who are often limited by the time they can spend on specific projects. Productivity can help you squeeze in as many tasks and work as possible without compromising the quality.

Down below, you’ll find our eight best productivity apps for Mac that will help you get organized, work faster & smarter, but also, never miss a deadline!

Top Mac Productivity Apps to Try

Mac on its own is an excellent choice for people who want to get things done and occur fewer problems in the long run. It features many great in-built apps that you can use – however, third-party is where Mac excels at.

Down below, you can find some of the best apps that will help you to increase productivity on your Mac.

  • 1. Dewo – Deep Work Assistant
  • 2. HazeOver – Dimming Distractions on Mac
  • 3. White Noise Lite – Putting Your Mind at Ease
  • 4. Cold Turkey – Blocking out Distractions
  • 5. Todoist – A Perfect Digital To-Do List
  • 6. RescueTime – Automatic Time Tracking
  • 7. DashLane – Managing Your Passwords
  • 8. Text Expander – Typing Faster by Typing Less
  • 9. Keyboard Maestro – Working Faster with Macros
  • 10. MindNode – Organizing Your Mind (Brainstorming)
  • 11. Magnet – For Multiple Window Tabs & Multi-Tasking

Disclosure: We sometimes use affiliate links which means that, at zero cost to you, we may earn a commission if you buy something through our links.

To Stay Focused

1. Dewo – Deep Work Assistant

Even before trying to increase your productivity, you need to look at your usual workday on Mac and see how well you perform.

Dewo is a great app that serves as a personal assistant that allows you to do more in-depth work. It assesses the time you spend using your Mac and it helps you protect your Mac workspace by eliminating distractions.

A helpful graph can break down your work across days, or even locations and apps. By knowing exactly how much time you spend on a particular task – you can easily optimize your workflow to shorten the time you spend on each task.

In fact, Dewo is an app that is made to help you do more work in a certain amount of time. On average, we’ve noticed that it can help us save about 52 minutes per day for a 6-hour workday.

This might not seem a lot, however, this adds up and can result in hours over the week.

We really like how Devo told us when we get the most of the deep work done. It also showed us how we can get more work done in a certain amount of time if we put this limited yet helpful deep focus on certain tasks.

Lastly, Dewo can even se AI to block out apps you aren’t using and apps that could be a distraction or suggest a meeting schedule that fits your schedule the most – and since it’s free, you should definitely check it out!

2. HazeOver – Dimming Distractions on Mac

Do you feel like that there’s too much going on at your Mac screen at times? Mac’s operating system is fairly sleek and elegant – but there’s nothing preventing you from opening as many windows as you’d like.

And if you are someone who needs to use multiple apps or have multiple windows open – it might seem that there’s no way to escape the distractions in each one of those tabs.

HazeOver is an app that deals with this issue directly. It’s an app that’s very simple to set up and yet it enables you to literally black out the tabs you aren’t using at the moment.

This way, you won’t have to minimize every single tab and then re-open it manually when you need it. Instead, you can have one tab open on top of all your other tabs, and yet use HazeOver to put all your focus into one tab.

What we liked about this distraction dimmer is that it even has a two-finger gesture you can use to dim your screen in less than a second.

You will save time by not having to minimize everything, have a nicer way to reduce brightness when using Mac at night, and keep multi-tasking efficiently even with more than one display.

We’ve noticed that HazeOver didn’t mess with our work since it’s super fast. Even when we had to drag something from one window to another – HazeOver followed through very nicely and didn’t disturb or slow down our work.

3. White Noise Lite – Putting Your Mind at Ease

Not everyone is a big fan of the noisy sounds that are surrounding you (such as the buzz of the office).

White noise is an audio signal that has the same intensity and is available at a couple of different frequencies.

The best example of the white noise is whirring fan, radio, or television static. But you shouldn’t judge the white noise before you try it.

Best mac os apps

And there is no better app for Mac than White Noise Lite. It’s an app specifically designed to provide more than 50 full HD white noises.

If you’re struggling to focus when working, or you’re disturbed by any other noise that’s surrounding you – White Noise Lite is a great way to mask other sounds that surround you.

Inside the app, you will be able to find a couple of different sound categories, such as:

  • Nature sounds
  • Animal sounds
  • Appliance noise
  • Colored noise

Within each category, you will have plenty of different white noise HD samples combined with a peaceful and relaxing image slideshow.

4. Cold Turkey – Blocking out Distractions

Did you know that an average person can spend up to 3 years of our life on social media? This is a huge number, and that’s okay.

But did you ever try to get some work done on your Mac and yet you end up spending 30-min or even an hour on social media without even realizing it until it is too late?

Cold Turkey is an app that helps prevent distractions from websites you don’t use for your work. Also, it’s a great app that can help block almost any app on your Mac, or even your Mac in whole at times.

Our favorite thing about Cold Turkey is the motivational quote we get when we try visiting a website that we previously blocked.

This is an excellent way of building great habits and self-disciplining yourself without even realizing it.

But how is this going to affect you if you have to use social media for work? Cold Turkey app is so well developed that you can choose individual pages of every social media platform to block out.

Therefore, you can still access tools within each platform that you need to use for work without getting distracted by other pages.

To Manage Time/Task/Passwords

5. Todoist – A Perfect Digital To-Do List

One way of staying a bit more organized and cutting time trying to remember what’s the next task you have to do is by having a digital to-do list.

Todoist is a perfect digital to-do list app that allows you to input all your tasks or projects, keep track of them, stay on top of the tasks, and even have interactive boards to put your thoughts on.

We really like the ability to use this app for both personal and professional projects and tasks. And even the ability to use a browser extension or have the app available on the iPhone/iPad is really handy.

Whenever an idea or task comes across your mind – you can simply write it down so you never forget it. And the next time you use your Mac, you’ll know exactly what needs to be done which will speed up the process of getting started working on your Mac every single day.

We really like this because it allows us to take more breaks while working without having a hard time coming back from the break, right into the workflow.

Best
6. RescueTime – Automatic Time Tracking

Did you ever feel like you don’t know where your time goes when you’re working? The biggest problem is that we often underestimate time we spend doing each task on our Mac.

And with the number of possible distractions – the time can run out very quickly. RescueTime is an app that’s there to literally rescue you from falling into this pit.

It automatically tracks your time so you don’t have to worry about it. All you have to do is run the app and check out the convenient reports that can help you judge your work day/routine and even help you improve every aspect of your work day on a Mac.

The motto of this app is to get more work done without working more hours in a day – and that’s exactly what productivity is.

We really like RescueTime has the ability to automatically track the time spent on apps and even websites without having to manually enter a single information.

If you are feeling like you could be a lot more productive but don’t know where to start – let this app serve you as a ‘fresh’ set of eyes as the app itself can let you know what can be improved and what you’re already doing great.

7. DashLane – Managing Your Passwords

How much time do you spend typing your passwords on various platforms or apps? The great thing about Mac’s Safari is that you can remember passwords & accounts on most websites to log in relatively quickly.

However, the real question here is – how much time do you spend recovering passwords you’ve forgotten?

DashLane is a great app available on Mac that lets you safely store all your passwords securely. The great thing is that you won’t have to type in your passwords ever again.

DashLane doesn’t only apply to the browser, but it also applies to apps and other software. One of the features we liked the most is the ability to auto-generate a very secure password.

Best Free Apps For Mac

Not only you won’t have to spend time creating new passwords for every account, but you’ll get a password that’s hard to crack without having to remember it.

But there’s one exciting feature which speeds up password sharing. But why would you share a password? In case you work as a part of a team or hire some help – you can easily share some passwords in just a couple of clicks.

If not, you can at least share your Netflix account password with your family members.

To Automate Your Work

8. Text Expander – Typing Faster by Typing Less

Do you feel like you’re sometimes repeating yourself over and over in your emails, messages, or other types of communication?

Not only this can be super boring or annoying, but you’re also spending extra time typing everything out.

With Text Expander, you can create snippets of text you often add in the beginning or closing part of your email so you can simply add it with a touch of a button.

Or, you can also create email outlines, boilerplate, and other types of content so you have it ready when you need it the most.

What we like the most about Text Expander is that can even pick up on things you write the most. So if you don’t realize some of repeating you do – Text Expander could help you notice it. That’s why many people call Text Expander their “second brain”.

We’ve noticed that with just Text Expander, we were able to cut our 40-min email & communication session down to 15 to 20 minutes.

Even if you don’t have loads of emails or messages to answer – you could still cut some time, reduce the effort, and maximize your time.

9. Keyboard Maestro – Working Faster with Macros

Keyboard Maestro helps you master all tasks you do on your Mac using the keyboard. Not everyone likes typing and not everyone is quick when it comes down to typing.

But how many times did you come across questionnaires, templates, or web forms on the internet?

Filling out any of these isn’t fun. Not only it takes time, but it also takes effort to type everything out. And if you have to fill out a couple of similar web forms – it’s easy to get bored with such tasks.

Keyboard Maestro is a wisely crafted app that has hundreds of built-in actions that won’t only help you fill forms out. Yet it will help you to automate most of the daily tasks you are doing, such as typing your email out, duplicating lines in documents, or even launching new pages inside the browser.

We’ve noticed that with Keyboard Maestro, we were able to have a bit better control over the apps, but also keep using Mac the way we used it for ages, yet have a bit help on the side.

This is super useful because you won’t have to re-learn how to use a Mac differently (or efficiently), yet you’ll have a helper on your side that will jump in whenever there’s something it can help you out with.

How simple or complex the help you get is – it is totally up to you. And even though there’s a bit of a learning curve with this app, it’s definitely worth it in the long run.

To Organize Your Digital Workspace

10. MindNode – Organizing Your Mind (Brainstorming)

If you’re someone who likes to brainstorm a lot and then take practical action – MindNode is a perfect app you need to have on your Mac.

It is an app that helps you write down your thoughts, create separate lists, and even visualize your thoughts and plans inside the app.

It’s a relatively lightweight app that won’t take a lot of time to load, and yet you’ll be able to write further ideas or anything that comes up to your mind.

And how this app affects productivity?

Instead of having to create a new document that you’ll have to organize or getting a piece of paper – you can do it directly within your Mac quickly and efficiently.

Therefore, writing something down or organizing your thoughts real quick won’t be a distraction.

The interface is pretty simple and it works in the way of a growing tree. The more things you add to it – the more you will expand the map in a tree-style.

11. Magnet – For Multiple Window Tabs & Multi-Tasking

Depending on your industry, you might have noticed people who use more than one screen to stay on top of their tasks, reduce the time they waste by switching between the apps, or simply have everything laid out in front of them.

Magnet is an excellent app for Mac that allows you to keep running multiple tabs at once in just one screen. Having all your tasks laid out in front of you and the essentials you require for work is definitely a great way to increase your productivity.

Download Mac Apps

We’ve noticed that since using Magnet, we have less clutter, we spend less time looking for things on our Mac, and we don’t have the need to switch between different tabs constantly.

But what’s even better with Magnet is that you can set up a couple of keyboard shortcuts to quickly copy and paste text from one tab to another while having all of them open simultaneously.

Honorable Mention: Setapp

Setapp is not a single app, but it’s an app that provides access to hundreds of different apps for your Mac for a fixed monthly fee.

The fee is only $9.99/month and yet you can get unlimited access to hundreds of paid apps.

And how does this help your productivity?

You will have all apps listed in a sleek interface of one app, you will save a bunch of money, and you will have almost any app from the list inside this blog post.

This suite of apps comes with a sleek interface where you can easily search for apps or navigate and browse all available apps.

We’ve noticed that there are plenty of apps that focus on productivity, but there are also apps that can help you increase the health & security of your Mac which is equally important.

Best Apps For Mac 2020

Even though there isn’t a free version, you can test out the Setapp by joining for trial which is free for the first 7 days.

How to Increase Productivity When Using a Mac?

Installing all of these apps won’t boost your productivity drastically. Even though it might help you with a couple of things – productivity is a skill that you have to gain and maintain.

No app will increase your productivity. But if you take advantage of these apps, you will be able to use your Mac in a certain way that will help you in the long run.

It’s all about how you use your Mac, rather than the apps you have on it. Some people who have their own routine and system might not need any of these apps.

However, if you’re just building out your routine on Mac and you’re looking for ways to be more productive, get more work done, and spend less time on time-consuming tasks – these apps can definitely help you out.

But other than relying on these apps, you should also:

  • Organize your desktop icons
  • Save your searches for a quick-search next time
  • Learn Mac shortcuts
  • Activate Hot Corners feature
  • Try dictating instead of typing
  • Use text replacements if you’re typing to increase speed
  • Use dock on a Touch Bar Mac model

Conclusion

Did you ever feel like you lacked something when you were using Mac? If you overlook problems, you might not find solutions.

But if you spend some time setting up your Mac in a certain way, you will also be able to set up your own routine that will help you stay productive on your Mac, get more work done in a shorter period of time, and stay organized at all times.

Whether you’re a freelancer, you work from home, or you’re just trying to study without getting distracted – we believe that you’ll be able to improve your productivity by taking advantage of at least a couple of apps from the list.

The Mac App Store has a wealth of content to help you find the right apps for your daily computing life. New apps arrive in the Mac App Store every single day, which makes it nearly impossible for one to keep track of the latest and greatest. We've dedicated our time (a lot of it) to track down and test out the best of the best. We even made a list of the best free apps for Mac. Here are the best paid apps for the Mac.

Best Apps 2014 For Mac Download

1Password

Every computer should be equipped with 1Password. It's our personal favorite password manager, as it stores all of our web logins (I have hundreds), credit card info, bank accounts, drivers licenses, social security info, and more, and everything is encrypted and locked behind a Master Password that only you should know. It's also fantastic for randomly generating strong and secure passwords, auditing your existing passwords (don't reuse them and change them often), and you can log in with just a few clicks.

1Password is free to download and use (30-day free trial), but afterward, you'll need an individual ($4/mo) or family ($7/mo for up to five people) plan to continue using. However, it's simply the best password manager there is and well worth it.

Logic Pro X

Logic Pro X is Apple's pro-level audio program. If you are a songwriter, producer, or engineer, you probably already have Logic in some form or another. If you don't already have it, Logic Pro X is the one for you. It has hundreds of tools for recording and editing both digital and analog music. You can create an entire album's worth of music using nothing more than a computer, or you can connect to a mixing board and edit tracks recorded by a live band. If the drummer forgets to show up for a recording session, no problem! You can add a virtual drummer with a distinct sound.

If you're new to recording music, Logic Pro X can be a little intimidating, but there are a lot of video tutorials and online how-to guides that can help get you started. It's a hefty investment at first, but worth the initial startup cost if you're planning on becoming a self-recording artist or want to have a home-grown studio.

Affinity Photo

Affinity Photo is one of the most comprehensive photo editing apps you can get on the Mac. It has professional-quality tools, like advanced color manipulation and 32-bit channel editing. It also has dozens of useful features, like multiple editable layers, vector graphics tools, advanced image processing, and retouching and correction masking tools. View the Histogram, manually make color and lighting adjustments, or select from the suggested default options. There are so many tools it would take you months to actually try them all out.

Affinity Photo also comes with paint, clone stamp, annotation, cropping, and selection tools. It's not entirely unlike Photoshop, but it is specially designed for Mac and has a better user interface.

It is somewhat intimidating for new users, but there is a fantastic in-house tutorial section to help photo editors of all levels of experience. You'll be able to call yourself an expert in no time at all.

MacX DVD Ripper

If you're ready to turn your DVD collection into a digital library in iTunes, MacX DVD Ripper is currently the best option for the Mac. I gave MacX DVD Ripper a try a few months ago and realized that it is definitely my new favorite digitizer. It has dozens of great features, like 1:1 copying with original video quality, excellent protection bypass tools (including for region codes and Disney DRM), and batch conversion. The ISO copy takes a long time but produces perfect quality digital files every single time. If you don't want to take the time, you can get faster ripping speed with hyperthreading. You can select which type of device to output the digital file to, including iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV. You can also use MacX to clip video segments to upload to YouTube, Vimeo, and more.

And if your Mac does not have an optical drive, we recommend picking up an Apple Superdrive. It's affordable and connects to your USB port, so you can still use that physical media laying around the house.

Scrivener 3

For the aspiring writer in all of us, Scrivener is nothing short of the most comprehensive writing program around. It features all of the tools you need to get started, like brainstorming tools, note cards, and a virtual draft board for pinning your ideas. Once you're ready to actually start writing, Scrivener makes the process smooth with pre-made templates for building scripts, novels, academic papers, and more.

There is a section where you can keep research documents close at hand for quick access. It comes with half-a-dozen templates for different types of documents, including screenplays, novels, short stories, scripts, and more. It has everything a writer needs to prepare for writing that novel they've always wanted to tackle.

Markdown Pro

If you're in the coding biz, especially if you spend a lot of time using Markdown, Markdown Pro is the best writing app for Mac that you can get your hands on. It shows you a real-time preview of your content, so you'll always know if you've made a mistake or if the end result doesn't look the way you intended. You can add a custom CSS template so you can always have your blog pages ready to go. All files can be saved as HTML or PDF. There is even a handy help guide with the most popular codes for Markdown listed for your convenience.

Notability

Free Apps For Mac

When it comes to taking notes, Notability is tops. It has powerful note-taking and annotation features that make it a must-have for college students. You can drag images, PDFs, and other documents into a note. When you record while taking notes, you can tap a word to skip ahead to that specific spot in the recording to playback what was said at that moment. Its note-taking tools are its most .. notable feature. You won't be caught without pen and paper if you have Notability on your Mac.

OmniFocus 3

OmniFocus is bursting at the seams with features. It has dozens of organizational options and lets you create project lists with sub-categories. You can add due dates, flag important items on a list, and view tasks like an email inbox. It definitely scratches my itch for list-making and organizing.

OmniFocus 3 is definitely worth downloading if you need a task manager that can cover every aspect of your working life. If you need a powerful GTD (getting things done) style organizer, OmniFocus 3 is the best one available on the Mac. It's free to download and includes a 14-day free trial. Afterward, you can get the Standard features for $50 or the Pro features for $100.

Gemini 2

Gemini 2 is a flexible, user-friendly duplicate file finder that lets you scan your entire computer or individual files for duplicates. Whether you are trying to track down songs, movies, photos, or documents that are doubles, Gemini has you covered. This is a great app for people that are a little nervous about going around deleting files from their computer.

It has a great looking interface with clear and understandable instructions. You can select a folder to scan. Then, review the duplicates, select the ones you want to get rid of, and hit the Trash button. It is simplified, but still gives you the freedom to scan your entire computer or just specific folders you want to check.

The app is free to download and includes a trial. Afterward, you can purchase a license for $20.

Airmail

Airmail treats your email like a to-do list. You can triage your inbox by scheduling when you are going to take care of an email. If you can't get to it right now, snooze it for later. If it's an email that requires an action, send it to your to-do folder. If it's something important that you'll want quick access to, mark it as a memo. And, when you've finished dealing with your email, send it to the 'Done' folder to get that sweet satisfaction of having completed something on your task list.

Final Cut Pro

If you deal with video editing on a daily basis, then iMovie may not be enough for you. That's when you need Final Cut Pro.

Best Apps 2014 For Mac Computer

Final Cut Pro is packed with a ton of powerful features to make your job of video editing easier. You'll have access to plenty of cool tools to streamline your editing, and organizing your media is a breeze with tools like smart collections. There are fun things like 2D and 3D titles, plenty of different transitions, and more. You can customize it with a large variety of third-party plug-ins and custom interfaces. The program utilizes all of the GPUs in your Mac for superior playback performance and speedy background rendering, so if you have a powerful machine, it's fully put to use with Final Cut Pro.

Magnet

If you work in multiple workspaces on your Mac, then Magnet is a must.

Magnet makes it super easy to automatically adjust the window size of any app you're working in, so you don't have to manually drag and resize every window each time. With Magnet, just select what size you want the active window to be, and voila, it will change it with one click. Then pick the other app you want to work with side-by-side, select the size you want (and the side), and boom! Now you have two apps side-by-side (or however you want to work it) with just a few clicks. No dragging and rearranging. Magnet lives in the menu bar, but you can also activate it with keyboard shortcuts if you're a keyboard wizard.

Day One

Journaling is a great way to reflect and capture important memories or thoughts, and Day One is the best journaling app you can get on Mac.

Day One has a beautiful interface that is pleasant and relaxing to work with. You can have multiple journals, and the ability to add multiple photos and audio clips to entries makes them more personable than ever. You can organize by tags, see where you were, format your entries with rich text, and more.

Day One is free to download and use, but you'll only have basic features. If you opt for a Premium subscription for $25 a year, you'll get unlimited photo storage, unlimited journals, cloud sync, unlimited encrypted cloud storage, and more.

Fantastical

While Apple has a built-in Calendar app, it's just not fantastic enough. That's when Fantastical comes in.

Best Apps For Macbook Air 2014

With Fantastical, you get a gorgeous interface that makes it easy to see your schedule at-a-glance, whether you're looking at the full app or just the mini menu-bar version. Inputting events is super easy, thanks to the natural language parser. Just type in something like 'Get coffee with Lory tomorrow at 3 pm at Stumptown Coffee Roasters' and Fantastical will take care of the rest. There is also full integration with Apple Reminders, so you can have your schedule and tasks in one place.

Your favorites?

What are the go-to paid apps for Mac you have on your laptop or desktop right now? Put them in the comments and let us know why they are so important to you.

July 2019: Updated to reflect the latest versions of apps, and added some new options. These are the best paid apps for your Mac!

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