5 best apps on macOS (2024)

Modified Jun 26, 2024 07:46 GMT

Most useful apps on Mac App Store (Image via Sportskeeda)

Whether you are looking for apps that serve specific purposes, or just want to boost your general productivity, there are tons of useful apps on the macOS. In this article, we have listed a few essential ones that you should install right away on your new Macbook, as well as some very useful but underrated ones.

So, without further ado, let's dive into our list of 5 best apps on macOS in 2024.

5 best apps on macOS to download in 2024

1) Fantastical ($4.75 / month)

Fantastical is one of the best calendar and daily routine manager apps for the Apple ecosystem (Image via Fantastical)

Fantastical is an app that serves as a calendar and daily planner. It has a wide array of features and works seamlessly on all Apple devices, including the Apple Watch and the Vision Pro. Its Scheduling feature makes arranging new events and meetings much easier by analyzing your timetable and only showing you the dates and times when you will be free.

Moreover, you can directly schedule and join conference calls on any video calling platform via Fantastical. Its seamless UI won the Apple Design Award in 2015 and offers a variety of useful widgets. Its other notable features include Focus mode, support for different time zones, and weather.

2) Pixelmator Pro ($49.99)

Pixelmator Pro is an easy-to-use and powerful photo editing tool (Image via Pixelmator)

The Pixelmator Pro is one of the best apps on macOS for photo editing, especially if you are a beginner or someone with basic photo editing requirements, and find Photoshop too complex and/or expensive.

It offers a beginner-friendly and minimalistic UI at a much cheaper price. Just like its predecessor, the latest version (3.6 Archipelago) of Pixelmator Pro comes with lots of features, and the developers have worked extensively on the masking tool. It has introduced features like AI background mask, vector mask, and full masking support.

3) Ulysses ($5.99 / month)

Ulysses is one of the best writing apps for Apple devices (Image via Ulysses)

When it comes to writing tools and journals, Ulysses is undeniably one of the best apps on macOS. This writing app is widely renowned and used by many writers these days. It comes with multiplatform capability, supporting macOS, iPadOS, and iOS. Be it a blog post, academic assignment, or long-form creative writing, Ulysses has different tools and interfaces for every use case.

Its built-in AI-powered proofreading and editing tool analyzes capitalization, punctuation, semantics, redundancy, style, and more. Keeping writers in mind, developers have added features to keep inspirational texts, images, and other materials handy. After completion, you can easily turn your work into a PDF, or a Word manuscript ready for publishing. You can also directly publish it on your WordPress, Ghost, Medium, or microblogging websites.

4) Alfred (Free)

Alfred is an essential keyboard shortcut and searching app for Mac (Image via Alfred)

Alfred is another excellent app on macOS that increases your efficiency, and productivity. Mac users often argue that Windows is the less user-friendly OS of the two. However, its powerful search feature is something that is missing on macOS.

There is no in-built feature in Mac that allows users to search between stored files, apps, web pages, and more. This is where Alfred comes in handy. Alongside the powerful search option, it also comes with other useful features like a built-in calculator, built-in dictionary, system commands, Quick Look, Clipboard, Hotkeys, Music app integration, Shell integration, 1Password integration, and more.

5) 1Password ($2.99 / month)

1Password is one of the best password manager apps for Mac (Image via 1Password)

For our final entry, 1Password is one of the best macOS apps for managing passwords and other sensitive information. It also allows users to create strong passwords, save and autofill login credentials, and more. Its diverse cross-platform support isn't just limited to Mac or other Apple devices, and it comes with extensions for most of the popular browsers.

1Password's unique AES-256 bit dual-layer encryption ensures end-to-end security. Additionally, its Digital wallet feature saves your credit/debit card and net banking credentials and allows auto-fills when needed. Finally, it has a unique Travel Mode feature that automatically removes sensitive data from your device during your travels, and you can regain the data when you come back.

These were our top 5 picks for best apps on macOS. We have tried to add a variety of apps without mentioning the most common ones (Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, VLC Media Player, MS Office, etc.) as you may already know about them.