Enhance Your macOS Experience with These Third-Party Apps
Remember the first time you took a big ol’ bite out of that shiny new Apple? With that MacBook or iMac, whether Mac Mini or Mac Pro, you were bathed in the time-honored Apple startup chime and greeted by a slick, intuitive operating system. Inevitably you noticed that not all the homegrown software Apple decided to include in macOS was tasty. Not that one (or five) bad apples here spoil the whole bunch, but you may as well pick out the bad ones, throw them away, and find yourself some third-party alternatives that taste sweeter.
We love macOS itself for its out-of-the-box stability that requires less tinkering than Windows and Linux, so don’t ditch the machine. Just take a look instead at these third-party applications to upgrade your macOS experience. Some are for niche uses, but others fix gaps in vanilla macOS. Many of these apps aren’t free, but most have free trials you can check out while you decide whether to buy. It’s also common for them to sync with companion apps on your iPhone. They might just make your life a little easier.
Also, be sure to check out our many other guides, including the Best Music Streaming Apps, Best MacBooks, Best iPads, Best iPhones, and How to Back Up Your iPhone.
Updated August 2024: We’ve added native Apple apps like Notes, Reminders, and FreeForm, as well as other apps like Zoom and Bitwarden. We also updated links and pricing throughout.
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For a Better User Experience
Yes, you can use Split View on macOS to view two applications side by side, but it’s nowhere near as intuitive as it is on Microsoft’s Windows, where you can simply drag a window to a corner and have it snap into place. This app is worth the $3 if you don’t want to mess with resizing window borders constantly. Magnet for $5 is another good option, although now that they’ve raised the price from $3, BetterSnapTool is a better deal.
If you’ve ever had to keep wiggling a finger on the trackpad during a movie or YouTube video to stop the screen from going to sleep over and over (or maybe during a particularly long download), you’ll appreciate an app that lets you keep the screen on for certain tasks. It even works with external displays. Sure, you can keep going into your system preferences to change the screensaver and hard disk shutdown settings, but that can get tiresome quickly.
The default search tool on macOS isn’t bad, but there’s room for it to go deeper. Alfred is a supercharged alternative that lets you create custom shortcuts to programs and file folders, activate system commands by typing, create automated custom workflows that begin with the push of a button or a typed phrase, and, well, a lot more. It’s free, but you can purchase a version called Powerpack that has more features, such as contacts and app integrations. It costs 29 British pounds (around $37) for a single user license, or £49 (around $62) for a lifetime of free upgrades to subsequent versions of Alfred.
MacOS is packed with all kinds of wondrously useful keyboard shortcuts that you’ll never use because even becoming aware of their mere existence is like a test of wits in an Indiana Jones movie. From Command + Shift + T (reopens last open browser tabs, even if you closed the window) to trying to remember that in Slack, laying a hyperlink into text is Command + V and not Command + K, like it is in Microsoft Word, there are a lot of arcane but supremely hidden keyboard shortcuts all across macOS’s apps, both first- and third-party. With a quick tap of a button, CheatSheet appears to display all the available keyboard shortcuts in whatever app you’re currently using, and another press hides it away. Simple, clean, and free.
Even though I said some nice things about Apple Music in my guide to the best music streaming apps, I still prefer Spotify as an all-around music streamer. Its interface is arguably the cleanest and most user-friendly in the field, and it has the strongest music discovery algorithms and social components for swapping music with your friends. I take my music too much to heart to put up with advertisements and limited song skips, so I recommend you drop the $12 per month for the Premium tier. Spotify HiFi, with CD-quality lossless audio, has no release date in sight, but unless you’re a die-hard audiophile with the ears and listening equipment to detect it, you probably don’t need lossless anyway.
AdGuard’s stand-alone macOS app lets you choose from and custom-toggle a huge array of filters to block social media extensions, pop-up ads, URL redirects, and a whole lot more. It works not only on your browser but also on other apps you have installed. There’s a free two-week trial, but you’ll need to pay for a license to use it after the trial expires. For $2.49 a month, you get access to the service on three devices simultaneously.
You’re likely already using Zoom for video calls on your work laptop, but it’s a great app for your personal Mac too—especially if your friends or family don’t own Apple devices to FaceTime on. In addition to meetings (for up to 40 minutes), it comes with other features like sharing your screen, messaging, notes, the whiteboard feature (where people can collaborate on a shared board with drawings and text), and more. This is the free tier, but Zoom offers paid options including the Pro tier ($13 a month) and the Business tier (for $18 a month), both of which offer additional features and capabilities that are all listed here.
For a Better Writing Experience
Tired of paying for Microsoft Office, unimpressed with Apple’s default office suite, and unable or unwilling to switch entirely over to Google’s G Suite on the cloud for everything? Download LibreOffice, a full-featured suite that includes the usual applications, such as a word processor and spreadsheet editor. It’s completely compatible with all the usual Microsoft file types, including legacy formats such as .doc. It’s open source and costs nothing to use, even commercially. For goodwill, donate a few bucks if you end up liking it and using it a lot.
OK, OK, I know I just presented a very worthy, free alternative to Microsoft Office, but there are two features that make paying for a Microsoft 365 subscription worth it, if you use them. First, Word’s included Editor feature, which scans for grammatical mistakes and makes suggestions, is as useful and easy to use as Grammarly. Second, Microsoft quietly rolled out free in-app voice transcription in Word a couple of years ago, and it’s as accurate as many of the expensive, stand-alone voice transcription software I’ve used.
I love Ulysses’ plain text and clean interface for writing longer stories, but it’s also perfect for short stories, novels, poetry, and scripts. It strips away all the unnecessary icons, buttons, and settings and lets you focus on your work. You can get a free trial before committing to the subscription fee. (You can opt for $6 per month instead of the annual payment plan.) If you do shell out, the iOS app is bundled with the macOS version.
Confused about which characters go inside quotation marks and which go outside? Make sure nobody can fault your grammar, spelling, and syntax with Grammarly, an app that works within your browser and on your desktop. Whether you’re writing in an email client, word processor, or another app, Grammarly works across all of them. Although there’s a free version, stepping up to the $12-per-month Premium version takes a much more active role and offers full-sentence rewrites, vocabulary ideas, and tone suggestions. Plus, even though Microsoft Word has an editor just as useful, you can use Grammarly in Word through an easy-to-install plug-in.
Journaling is a meditative experience, but if you’re like me and your handwriting looks like an SOS message carved into a rock, you tend to avoid writing on paper. Day One is a great digital journaling experience that lets you insert photos, save voice recordings, and export your logs in various formats, like PDFs. Your journal entries are end-to-end encrypted, automatically backed up, and secured with a passcode or biometrics too. There’s a free version, but it’s severely limited, so you’re better off paying the $35 per year for the full suite of features. There’s a one-month free trial available, up from seven days the last time we updated this guide