In this article, I’ll explain 5 must have Mac apps in 2020. Without any further ado, let’s get started.
Apple’s
macOS
is one of the most powerful and efficient operating systems out there. With the new macOS 11 Big Sur update Apple is stepping up their aesthetic game once again. Some even say macOS is one of the mature operating systems in the market. And yet macOS is not without its Drawbacks. Sometimes those little drawbacks could make or spoil the experience for many users. And the Mac App Store is still not fleshed out for better or worse. Fortunately, the Cupertino based company allows Mac users to download apps from third-party websites. Try out these must have Mac apps to make your work a bit easier.
See also:
5 Best Mac Apps For Working from Home
Must have Mac apps 2020
Shift: An App for everything
The Shift is basically a social media account for all your social media accounts. The app lets you use all your social accounts in one convenient app. Shift provides you with an option to link your email accounts right in the setup process of the app. Then the app gives you a list of web apps & tools that can be linked to the app.
You can add web apps like slack, WhatsApp, Instagram, LinkedIn, Dribbble, Spotify, WordPress, Google Apps Suite, etc. The app even lets you customize options like the icon color of the apps and prioritize notifications from each app you add. In addition, the app gives you a choice to separate your work apps into a dedicated section.
What’s makes the app standout is that if your work is mostly on the web or browser you don’t even need to open another app. Shift offers a basic free tier and a premium tier which could cost you up to $100 a year for advanced features. You can download it right from the Shift website.
Alfred: The Butler!
Alfred is one of the best must have free Mac apps in 2020. The app is an award-winning productivity app for macOS. Alfred is sort of a replacement for the spotlight search. But there is more to it. With the Alfred app installed on your device, you won’t even require a mouse to navigate your Mac.
The app lets you find your apps, browse your files, search the web, control your music, email your friend, and much more. You just need to press the command key + spacebar and Alfred will be at your service. What more is you can even assign specific hotkeys for your favorite apps to quickly access them. It’s free to download and nothing is behind a paywall.
Apollo One
Apollo One is one of the best photo and video viewer for macOS. The app takes the best features of Lightroom and combines it with the speed of a system app. It also provides an EXIF metadata, RGB parades, and histograms which is really useful to most photographers and video editors. It can do what the mac system can’t even do. This photo viewer app can basically support every RAW file format if you’re into processing RAW images.
Thanks to metadata if you have RAW images you can even click a point on the subject to see if the autofocus point was in the right place or not. The app also allows you to do macOS based tagging, color tagging. The app also gives you an option to add spotlight metadata, tag the GPS location, edit metadata, and many more features. It is free and they even have a premium version if you need the more advanced features.
Magnet: Windows Snapping for Mac
This app addresses one of the most annoying features of the macOS. Magnet is an app that allows macOS to snap windows much like Windows 10’s built-in windows snapping feature. Whenever you want to multitask or compare the data in different apps, all you need to do is drag the app to the side of the screen and Magnet will resize the window into half of the screen.
To have more than two apps on the screen, you simply need to drag the window to the corners of your screen, the window will be resized into a quarter of the screen. And drag the window to the bottom of the screen to create thirds. Magnet also supports wide screens and can adjust itself to vertical screens pretty easily. You can download Magnet on the Mac App Store and it only costs $3.
PDF Pen: A better PDF reader
PDF Pen is one of the simple yet most advanced PDF readers for macOS available today. It is the best alternative to Adobe’s Acrobat reader in almost every single way. Indeed and in fact, it is even better than that. It is fast, smooth, and feature-rich.
PDF Pen features a built-in Optical Character Recognition (OCR) feature which can turn texts from pictures into word text. Users can easily correct or modify mistakes. A built-in exporter for faster and easy file conversion to other formats. Moreover, the app gives you the ability to sign your documents by scribbling with your mouse or trackpad. PDF Pen also lets you integrate your cloud service within the app to store your files in your favorite cloud service. It is a bit expensive at $80 but it is totally worth every penny. Before purchasing the app, you can try out the free trial too.
Other apps like AdGuard for better Ad filters across the entire system to block annoying ads and dangerous websites, Notion a project management tool for teams and individuals to better manage your workflow. And even more like Unarchiver for extracting RAR files and Transmission.
Some of the apps we’ve discussed above such as the Shift, PDF Pen, AdGuard, and Notion also have Windows versions. I trust these apps will surely boost your
productivity
. We’d love to know your must have Mac apps that you use in your daily workflow. Thank you for reading.