The Mac App Store went live in early 2011 and offers apps in every department, from games to productivity tools. Some are simply macOS versions of popular.
TL;DR: This expansive bundle of Mac apps is on sale and you get to pick your own price.
If you're a proud Mac owner, your computer is already a pretty powerful machine on its own. But combined with the right apps, it could be doing so much more. Yeah, that's right — apps for your computer! They're not just for phones! In fact, this bundle of Mac apps gives you a handful that'll help level-up your laptop, and you can even name your own price.
Let's break down how this works. You pay what you want for the bundle — if it's less than the average price, you won't walk away with the whole thing, but you'll still end up with something great. If you beat the average price, you'll get all 10 apps. It's like a game where you can't lose.
Here's what these Mac goodies can do:
Never accidentally empty your trash again
Look, we've all done it — you're running low on storage space, so you move a few files to the trash and hit 'empty,' only to realize you accidentally deleted an important Word document along with it. And of course, there are no backups, because why would there be? It's not like you would ever delete that file in the first place! Except, you just did. Thankfully, you can get it back with Ultdata Recovery. This app recovers a wide variety of deleted or corrupted files from your computer, hard drive, and more.
Download videos from almost any site
If you're about to board a plane, head out into the wilderness, or go pretty much anywhere WiFi can't reach, but still want to be able to binge-watch your favorite shows, Movie Sherlock Pro is the app for you. It lets you download any video from nearly any site so you can watch it again later on your device without an internet connection. Now you can camp the right way — with immediate access to your entire entertainment library. Ahh, the great outdoors.
Give Finder the steroid injection it so desperately needs
Effortlessly navigate between different apps and files while you work with Dropzone 3, an app that lets you drag and drop your way around your desktop. Simply drag a file to the 'drop zone' at the top of your screen and drop it where you need it to go, whether that's a folder on your computer or an app like Twitter or your inbox. Organization is literally unavoidable with this app (you're welcome.)
Have the best-dressed screen in the office
If you're tired of choosing between the same five stock photos Apple picks for you, Wallpaper Wizard 2 is the breath of fresh air you've been looking for. With more than 25,000 gorgeous HD images to choose from, you'll be able to find the perfect picture to express yourself through your background image. It's the little things, ya know?
Keep track of all your files, no matter what device they live on
If you have a Mac, chances are you have an iPhone too. And maybe an Apple Watch. And probably an iPad. And that's a lot of different devices with a lot of different files. Enter AnyTrans for iOS, your new all-in-one content manager. AnyTrans consolidates access to all the files across all of your devices, so you don't have to scramble between them trying to find what you're looking for.
Let your webcam breathe
Hacking is no joke — but that unsightly piece of tape covering your webcam is pretty laughable. If you're serious about keeping hackers from accessing your computer's webcam and microphone, you need Camera Guard™ 3 Pro. With one click, Camera Guard™ protects your camera and microphone with PIN access and an innovative AI that actually observes all accesses on your computer and reports suspicious activity. So, yeah. A lot better than a piece of tape.
Make your photos better with practically zero effort
Hard-to-see photos are a thing of the past with Photo DeNoise, an app that instantly fixes photo graininess and poor lighting. Easily remove image noise and enhance detail without having to navigate a more advanced app like Photoshop.
Split your screen for streamlined workflow
Don't drown in a sea of open windows and applications. Cisdem Window Manager will split your screen into various sizes and positions. You can automatically split-screen when dragging to screen edges or you can set up keyboard shortcuts that will instantly organize your window for you. Once you start using it, you'll be very confused as to how you ever lived without it.
Convert literally anything into a PDF
You won't know how essential this app is until you're in a situation that requires you to somehow make changes to a PDF. Spoiler alert: you can't, unless you have the right software. With Cisdem PDF Converter, you can convert PDFs into images and editable document files. It even allows you to combine several files into one PDF and extract specific pages.
Grab all ten of these apps today by beating the average price. You got this.
More often then not I get asked what are some of the must-have Mac OS X apps by friends and family members who’s just got their hands on their first Mac. So much so that I had taken the effort to put them up in an article listing exactly that. With the recent release of OS X El Capitan, it’s time for a refresh of my top apps recommendation for the Mac platform again.
I’ve previously written a similar article back on my own blog site in 2013 when OS X 11 was released. In this article, I’ve now refine the list to a set of top 5 apps and the rest in a secondary list. This is by no means that apps are not as great but instead are ones that would depend on personal preference if you need such apps or not. Just as an example, as great Affinity Photo is, not everyone needs a powerful alternative to Apple’s own Photo app.
Ok. enough of this chit-chat. Let’s jump straight into the top 5 apps that you need to have.
Top 5 Must-Have Mac OS X Apps
1. Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X 14
Even when I work in a predominantly Mac user workplace, I still need to deal with a lot of NTFS-formatted external storages. More so if you work in an environment that’s largely Windows dominated. And as you would probably already discovered, OS X by default can only read NTFS formatted drives and not write into it.
Thankfully, the good folks at Paragon Software provides us with an implementation of NTFS support for OS X. The latest version 14 provides full NTFS features and supports the latest OS X El Capitan. This alone makes it the top of the must-have Mac OS X apps list. Paragon Software has also made the installation process a lot easier on this latest release, making it simpler for non-techies to install it.
I’ve been using Paragon Software NTFS for Mac OS X for a long time and it’s really stable! And I would also say that this is a software that’s pretty much mandatory for anyone with a Mac, unless of course you exclusively only work on OS X.
Link: Paragon NTFS for Mac OS X 14 $19.95!
2. 1Password
With all the password hacks going around the web, it is time everyone starts using stronger passwords for all your online accounts. Not just a single strong password being re-used, but a unique strong passwords for each online account you have. And if that is to be, then you would need to use a password manager to help you remember all those passwords, unless of course you are one of those unique individual who can simply just remember everything. I’m surely am not, and therefore swears by the use of 1Password for this specific use!
When it comes to password management, 1Password is really in a league of its own. What I like most about 1Password is it’s ability to not just store and manage passwords well, but it’s ability to seamlessly sync the stored passwords across all your iDevices (iPad, iPhones and iPod Touch) via iCloud or Dropbox, as long as you also have the 1Password app on your device. It also stores not just passwords, but also credit card numbers (which is really helpful for all your online shopping needs), software license keys, accounts, and much more!
And on the latest version of 1Password, it has a mini interface that is accessible with a quick shortcut key that allows you to quickly search the information you need and immediately copy it into the clipboard and allowing you to paste it where you need it to be.
Before, you would only be limited to the browser plugin that helps you automatically login with the stored user id and password, or opening up the full application to gain access to the secured information.You can even create multiple vaults to be shared across different team or family members for those accounts that are meant to be shared, while keeping your own personal logins accessible just to yourself.
$49.99 and $17.99 may seem steep for an OS X and iOS app, but this amount worth spending so to allow you to start managing (and strengthening) all your online accounts. Getting your password hacked is far more annoying and potentially a costlier affair too!
Link: 1Password ($49.99 on the Mac App Store) and 1Password for iOS ($17.99 on the App Store)
3. Alfred with the PowerPack
Alfred is one of the few utility apps that I can’t live without now on my Mac. Essentially, it’s a search utility, working pretty much like Spotlight of OS X. However, it does it in a far more elegant way. It also provides you with the quickest way to launch applications. Find out more about what Alfred can do for you here. The basic version of Alfred is available free on the Mac App Store or from their website as well, which makes it a real no brainer to have it installed on your Mac.
But I highly recommend using Alfred with its Powerpack which only costs you £15 as the extra features is really worth the cost! One of the greatest features that the Powerpack includes is the ability to create global shortcut keys that allows you to launch not just apps but also to open a commonly used folder, activate an AppleScript, run system commands, and much more. It also provides a quick file system navigator that’s really handy in many situations.
In addition to that, the Powerpack also enables the ability for you to create workflows! You can find many cool examples of the use of Alfred Workflows here. Personally, I use it as a replacement to bash scripts that executes or starts up servers which I would have to do on the terminal.
Link: Alfred Powerpack (£15)
4. Airmail
Personally, I think Airmail is the OS X mail app that should have been. I’ve used Airmail from the very early days of its beta releases and now that the app is officially released on the Mac App Store, I’m highly recommending it to anyone who has looked out for an alternative to the default Mail app, especially if your email is based on Google Mail. Airmail is built from ground up to support Gmail natively.
What’s really great about Airmail is its highly responsive interface. It also have a very intuitive user interface which most mail apps have come to adopt since. One thing I like most about Airmail is its awesome support for multiple email accounts, support for a multitude of email services, including support for Exchange, IMAP, POP3, Gmail, Google Apps, iCloud™, Yahoo!, AOL, Outlook.com, Live.com and many other providers with IMAP or POP3 support.
Also, Airmail’s iOS app is on the way and when it is released, it would likely be the first mail app that supports the iOS and OS X Handoff feature.
Link: Airmail ($9.99 on the Mac App Store)
5. AppCleaner
Uninstalling applications on the Mac is really easy. Unlike Windows which requires an uninstaller to do the job right, on the Mac, you simple would just delete the application. It’s that simple! However, it still does leave some traces on your Mac, in the form of settings and configuration files. If you plan to reinstall the application later on and would like to have all the settings and configurations intact, then that’s fine. However, if you like to wipe it all clean, then AppCleaner does exactly that for you with just a simple drag and drop.
I would basically keep AppCleaner on my dock and simply drag and drop any applications I like to removed on the AppCleaner icon on the dock. The other options is to simple open up AppCleaner, click on Applications (or Widgets or Others) and search for the app in question and then click on “Search”, confirm that you want to delete the app and its related files, then delete them,
Link: AppCleaner
So far…
As I’ve mentioned earlier, these 5 apps are must haves and I would recommend them to anyone who’s on the OS X platform. The total amount so far is about US$120 (US$97.92 + £15 which is roughly $23.00).
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Must Have Mac Products
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