The 20 Best Mac Apps That Will Improve Your Apple Experience In 2024

Once you go Mac, you never go back. Apple's Macintosh computers are slim, stylish aluminum powerhouses that give you plenty of reasons to make the switch from Windows. Literal all-day battery life? Check. Top-of-the-line performance on a fanless machine? Check. Years of guaranteed operating system and feature updates? Check and check. In recent years, Apple's machines have become increasingly accessible; the base Mac Mini with M2 starts at a budget $599, and Apple's new Game Porting Toolkit may someday make the platform a worthwhile PC gaming alternative. Whatever the future of the Mac may be, one thing is certain: Mac continues to dominate on the software front.

Contrary to popular belief, Macs are deeply customizable, but their customization shines through third-party apps rather than built-in Apple features — letting you choose the features that matter most. Mac apps tend to be higher quality since they adhere to Apple's strict guidelines and UI design philosophies, and the average Mac user's willingness to pay more for their apps ensures apps get more consistent, long-term development cycles. Once you find that one app — the one that becomes vital to your workflow — it's impossible to go back.

SlashGear will help you get started with 20 indispensable Mac apps that will supercharge your desktop experience. We've selected apps based on how well they improve productivity and their popularity in online communities such as r/MacApps. We've gathered a healthy mix of free and paid options so there's something for every budget.

Another lackluster aspect of Mac is its window management — or rather, the lack thereof. Windows 11's "Snap" will change how you use your PC, but on Mac, there's no proprietary way to organize your desktop in the same fashion. Magnet and Rectangle are excellent mouse and keyboard-oriented choices, but if you have a trackpad, you really ought to go for Swish. Swish is based on a brilliantly simple principle: instead of managing windows with dragging or keyboard shortcuts, you can position them with trackpad gestures.

For example, swiping up with two fingers on a window's title bar will make the app fill the screen; swiping right or left halves it; swiping down minimizes the app to the Dock. Pinching with two fingers in the title bar closes an app, and a two-finger right or left swipe gives you a trackpad-activated app switcher function — and that's only a small taste of what Swish can do. The app just feels intuitive, like a native macOS feature that never was. Using it daily, you'll quickly get to a point where living without it is painful. Swish offers a 14-day trial, after which it costs $16 for a two-machine license. This may seem like a high price, but it's worth it. Setapp subscribers get it free as part of their subscription.

There are a lot of macOS tips new Mac owners should know, and likewise, apps that everyone in the community treats as must-haves. Bartender is one of those apps. The Mac Menubar can get cluttered since every app — especially background ones — needs an icon there for you to access its settings. This clutter can easily make certain apps inaccessible once menu bar items get hidden by the notch. Bartender offers a simple, effective solution: hide any unwanted icons in a separate Bartender Bar. If you rarely need a particular icon, you can place it in the Always Hidden area within settings where it will remain sight unseen until needed.

That's just a small slice of what Bartender is capable of. It allows you to style the menu bar, create icon groups, program triggers (such as having the battery icon appear when it drops below a certain percentage), and much more. A single-user license for multiple devices only costs $16, and those upgrading from older versions can pay just $8.

Give it a shot with the free four-week trial before you commit, or get a free alternative like Hidden Bar.

Occasionally, Mac has one, teeny-tiny peculiarity liable to drive you insane. The "Natural Scrolling" setting is a perfect example of this. Long story short, on Mac, you cannot give your mouse and trackpad two different scrolling directions. if you enable "Natural Scrolling," then you enable it for both your mouse and your trackpad. Switching from one to the other will result in you subconsciously scrolling in the wrong direction, resulting in an infuriating re-adjustment — and vice versa. Mac Mouse Fix does what it says: it fixes your mouse's scroll direction so it remains separate from that of your trackpad, where natural scrolling is the preferred default.

In recent updates, Mac Mouse Fix has included even more features. It gives you Apple's proprietary Magic Mouse smooth scrolling on any third-party mouse, enables trackpad-like mouse gestures, and allows for easily programmable mouse shortcut actions — for example, double-clicking to Smart Zoom. Importantly, it's lightweight to avoid draining your battery. You can try it free for 30 days, then pay $2.99 for a lifetime license. If you just want the mouse fix and smooth scrolling — and aren't keen to buy an app — then try Mos.

Mac has always had the upper hand over Windows with the App Store, something Microsoft didn't implement until 2012 with Windows 8. Regardless, both Windows and Mac users still have to download much of their software directly from developer websites and install the .exe/.dmg files by themselves — which makes updating these non-store apps a pain. Neither Microsoft nor Apple has created a proprietary solution for this issue, so that's where Mac's MacUpdater comes in. It does what it says on the tin: it updates your apps, especially non-App Store ones that Apple cannot.

MacUpdater ticks a lot of important boxes. It's privacy-focused, keeping your app downloads out of the hands of information brokers, and it's a one-time purchase; no silly memberships to add to your growing pile of subscriptions. The free version only lets you scan for updates, while the single-user standard version at $10.53 enables the one-click bulk update feature, among others. Only the Pro and Business editions support multiple users and automated, hands-off updates, starting at $24.58. MacUpdater works like a charm and gets some excellent dev support, but there are some free and open-source alternatives, such as Latest.

VLC is widely considered to be the go-to, cross-platform video player for offline — and some online — media. It's a proverbial Swiss Army Knife, packed to the gills with support for almost every codec out there and endless feature customization. The Mac version of VLC is no less robust than on other platforms, but we highly recommend switching to IINA if you want a VLC-like app designed specifically for macOS. IINA, like VLC, aims to play any file you can throw at it, has strong subtitle support, and incorporates online video streams like YouTube, in addition to deep user customization. What sets it apart is the care given to video controls and the visual aesthetic.

According to IINA, the app "adopts post-Yosemite design language" and tries to incorporate native Apple features like Force Touch on the trackpad and Picture-in-Picture. In other words, it looks, feels, and functions as if it was shipped out of Cupertino, California with the latest macOS version. Think of it as a Quicktime Player you want to use instead of having to out of necessity. Granted, IINA is a young app that's still undergoing development and has yet to reach version 2.0, but in its current state, the app can easily replace VLC for the average user.

You'd think in 2024 apps and websites would've learned already that Dark Mode is an integral — not optional — feature. There's nothing worse than browsing late in the evening, only to be flash banged by that occasional recalcitrant website with a blindingly white UI. Perhaps this will one day cease to be an issue, but until that day comes, Dark Reader protects your delicate eyes. This Safari app checks whether a website supports Dark Mode natively, and if it doesn't, makes it look like it does. Effectively, it's just inverting a website's color scheme so that it's still readable and aesthetically pleasing despite the web designer never having supported a dark color scheme.

Dark Reader lets you turn it on and off for all websites, or disable it on a site-by-site basis. Enabling it is fast, and doesn't require reloading the page. If a page isn't readable — or doesn't look good — you can easily make changes from within the app. Those who are picky with website appearance won't be disappointed with the level of customization that Dark Reader offers. The only downside is that Dark Reader — free outside Safari — costs $4.99 on the App Store. It's a one-time purchase that works on all your platforms like iPad and iOS. The only other alternative on Safari is Noir, which costs $2.99 and has far less functionality.

So, imagine you're away from your Mac with only your iPhone — or, if you're one of the lucky few, on an Apple Vision Pro that doesn't give you nausea. You find a website that you want to look at later, on your Mac. You could add it to bookmarks or your Safari reading list — among other things — or you could send it with Hyperduck. Just select "Send to Mac" in the Apple share menu of any iPhone or VisionOS app, and when your Mac is next open and online, the link will appear in your default browser, guaranteed. Hyberduck works even if your Mac is offline, and it sends the link via iCloud to preserve your privacy.

Granted, there are a ton of apps out there like Pocket that functionally do the same thing, but with way more features. Hyperduck isn't trying to be like those apps, but rather just a way to temporarily forget about a link you want to check later at home and make sure it doesn't get buried in a list of other saved links. Hyperduck also lets you leverage iPhone-enabled Mac shortcuts. You could, for example, play a song on your Mac via your iPhone. The app is free, but requires an iPhone and Mac on the same iCloud account and a brief setup process. Donate to the developer if you like it.

Using iCloud on Apple is a breeze, but the second you go off the beaten path with a competing cloud service, your Mac turns its back on you. Microsoft's OneDrive, as one example, is a synch-issue-ridden pain in the neck. The situation with Dropbox on Mac is painful for another reason: the app is just too resource-hungry. It gobbles up your CPU and RAM even if you're not actively working on Dropbox files. Enter Maestral, an open-source Dropbox client with a primary focus on being light as a feather.

Maestral isn't a perfect one-for-one replacement; using the public Dropbox API limits it and means it cannot support Dropbox Paper or binary diff file transfer (i.e., only uploading the part of a file that changed). You won't be bothered by those limitations, though, since Maestral uses a fraction of the hard drive space and resource requirements compared to the official app, meaning you can leave it running in the background without taking a big hit to performance. It's also an excellent solution for people who only have a free Dropbox Basic account; Maestral uses the API, so it doesn't count toward your three-device limit like it would with the official apps.

Maestral is free and open-source, and the developer only appears to request donations when app contributors use paid Apple Developer tools.

It may come as a surprise to some that many computer users are in favor of getting rid of the caps lock key. Yahoo News describes it as a "vestigial... holdover from typewriter days when holding down a shift key required actual, strenuous effort." Think about it: More often than not you hit caps lock on accident — not on purpose — and when you do need it, you're likely to hold down shift to type a single word in all caps instead. Until we universally agree to excise caps locks from our keyboards, use caps lock as an extra modifier key with Hyperkey. It's useful for anyone who uses a ton of keyboard shortcuts and wouldn't mind having a few more.

You can use Hyperkey in one of two ways: as an extra modifier key in combination with the aforementioned ones, or as a solitary modifier key with specific shortcuts. That's all Hyperkey does. The key combinations you decide on are up to you. Hyperkey is free to use, but you can support development and unlock additional functionality by upgrading to Superkey, the "pro" version of Hyperkey. In addition to the Hyperkey functionality, it also lets you select any on-screen text with your keyboard and click it without touching the mouse. Superkey costs $15.99 after a 20-day trial.

There are more browsers to choose from now than ever before, and all of them are packed with useful features. Using most browsers, however, hasn't fundamentally changed. Functionally speaking, they all have identical rows or columns of tabs that work more or less the same. Arc Browser from the Browser Company aims to change how you use your browser from the ground up so you can work faster and more efficiently. In Arc's words, it "shapes itself to how you use the internet."

Arc takes a clever spin on many aspects of browsers we've come to assume are set in stone. It changes how you use tabs by organizing them into pinned and favorite tabs that you use every day, and "unpinned" tabs that will eventually get closed within 12 hours to keep your browser de-cluttered and organized. It includes a seamless profile-switching experience so you can jump between "spaces" for work and play, all in a single window. It lets you control everything with a Spotlight-like search command to open new tabs, search in existing ones, select specific tabs, and so much more. SlashGear likely needs a full review to show you everything Arc is capable of. Power users willing to learn its ins and outs will quickly supercharge their productivity, especially if they use the Arc Max AI features.

Despite being a browser that works effectively like an operating-system-in-an-operating-system, Arc is free to use.