Our favorite apps are the ones that help us

Gaucho Software might be a 1-man-show, but he does make our most useful app! XRG (X Resource Graph) essentially displaying the heartbeat of your Mac in one simple configurable window.

Looking for a free alternative to iStat Menus? Take a look at XRG! It clearly display all the wanted stats of the Mac while we work or play. We do recommend donating him a few bucks for a job well done and for the many quick updates!Devs @ MacX

Adding your Macs vitals in the menu is a great way to use the mostly empty menubar. Fabrice Leyne knows how to build some proper helping apps!

Get instant information about the health of your Mac, by looking at your menu bar or Notification Center. All modules can be added to your menu bar.Fabrice Leyne @ Seense.com

Among the great apps created by MacPaw, CleanMyPC is the related cuisine of CleanMyMac for those of you that has the Windoze! ;)

Keeping Windows 10 running smooth can be tiresome and tedious. Luckily MacPaw consolidated the needed tools for this in 1 app. All our Windows platforms are running like a newly installed even after a year thanks to CleanMyPC.Devs @ MacX

Save space by eliminating duplicate files. MacPaw’s Gemini helps you find candidates and you can easily select the versions you want to remove. Or let Gemini intelligently select them for you and then review the selection.

Boss: Please review our (1000s-folder-large) gallery for duplicates to free up space on the RAID.
Dev: (minutes later) Done!Devs @ MacX

This long lived maintenance app from Northern Softworks does a lot of the cleaning needed for your Mac to run smoothly . It even checks for Malware, and are supposedly one of the best at that. Find the older version here.

An award-winning general-purpose software, Catalina Cache Cleaner (CCC) makes system maintenance a breeze, but we're interested in its capabilities as a malware scanner. We're pleased to report that it shows up well.MacUpdate.com (Nov. 2019)

Hands Off! is another great app to monitor what your applications send and access. One Periodic Inc. make a very well made app with an intuitive interface and numerous features.

Keep an eye on Internet connections from all applications as to expose the hidden connections. Prevent them from sending data without your consent, hence avoiding information leakage. One Periodic Inc.!USER

This app might seem ”light weight” compared with the 2 above, but don’t bee fooled by the simple interface. With Radio Silence by Juuso Salonen you can easily allow/blocks any data from selected apps.

It is perhaps the easiest firewall I've ever used.Macworld

Latest apps to hit this niche is LuLu. It’s a free and open-source firewall for MacOS stops outgoing transmissions from apps or alerts you - so you can decide what are being send or not.

Like the apps above LuLu from objective-see llc adds a barrier to prevent apps (or malware) to send hidden communications. You are in control of what is being send and which apps are allowed to do that. All in a neat, clean and modern interface.Devs @ MacX

While built-in macOS firewall efficiently blocks unwanted incoming connections, Paragon Firewall for Mac helps you control programs and services that send information to the Internet, making sure not a single bit of data leaves your computer without your permission.

First Firewall on AppStore!!! Yeah, ok... But seriously it does what does without comprehensive installing and configuring. Paragon made yet another great tool, easy to install, easy to configure and easy to use.Dev @ MacX

TechTool Pro is feature-packed with benefits that all Mac users need for comprehensive diagnostics, repair, and maintenance. With a intuitive interface and multiple tools TechTool Pro gets the job done!

TechTool Pro has a lot of nice features to check, test and repair your drives, hardware and software. Highly recommended. (but...) Formerly our go-to app for HDD maintenance and diagnostics. Micromat Inc. creates great software, but sadly they have become too pricy for us to keep upgrading for the little new features.Devs @ MacX

TinkerTool System 6 is a collection of system utility features helping you in performing advanced administration tasks on Apple Macintosh computers.

TinkerTool System 6 contains all you need for Macintosh administration — and even more.bresink.com

Paragon Hard Disk Manager for Mac is a system and data management solution for Apple computers. It provides powerful backup and flexible recovery features, everything you need for perfect partitioning, and reliable data wiping algorithms.

It might seem silly to install a Hard Disk Manager when macOS already has one (Disk Utilities), but this so much more: APFS container resizing, Resize/Move partition, Undelete partition, Copy disks and partitions, Data wiping, Fix partition problems, Boot Media Builder, Resize Boot Camp, Fix Windows boot issues... AND Create, format, resize, change properties of HFS+, NTFS, ExtFS, FAT and Microsoft exFAT partitions.Dev @ MacX

Building the ultimate file renamer takes time. That's why ever since 1996, we have made it our business to listen to our customers. A Better Finder Rename has long been the file renamer of choice for tens of thousands of professionals, businesses and hobbyists across the world, but that hasn't stopped us from continuing to perfect our product culminating now in the brand-new version 11.

Arguably the best file renaming utility on the marked.Mac OS X Power Tools

This is the perfect side-kick to ”A Better Finder Rename”, yet a very useful app on its own. A Better Finder Attributes enables you, as the name implies, to edit the attributes of any file or folder. It’s able to read any embedded meta-data, show and edit them with a simple interface.

Having a long list of actions to show or edit any meta-data of any files ready at a single mouse click makes this app extremely useful. It even has a ”Force the Finder to update its information on the files(s)” action! EPIC!Dev @ MacX

ScreenSharingMenulet provides easy access to Screen Sharing from the menu bar. Local and Back to My Mac hosts are automatically detected with Bonjour.

Essential a GUI front for the build-in macOS ScreenSharing tool (hidden in the core system apps), but ScreenSharingMenulet give you an easy overview of accessible hosts – no need to remember IPs.Devs @ MacX

AudioSwitcher is a menu bar that allows you to switch quickly between all available input and output devices. In addition you can change the volume of any device without having to change your current input / output.

Having access to all available sound sources and outlets right there in the menu is really convenient. We often switch from local audio speakers to digital input/output and AudioSwitcher lets us quickly select and adjust this.Devs @ MacX

Screensaver are not really enhancing work, but some are quite useful - Showing the Clock. There are many screensavers and many that simply show the clock. There are many ”Flip Clock” screensavers, but Fliqlo is the best! The numerals are large and clear. With no clutter it gets the job done.

Fliqlo works on Mac, Windows and iOS and it’s free for Desktop (iOS is $0.99), but we recommend donating a 5’er to this developer who understand that software should have function AND style.Devs @ MacX

The free version of Disk Drill can scan and recover data from virtually any storage device — including internal Macintosh hard drives, external hard drives, cameras, iPhones, iPads, iPods, Android devices, USB flash drives, Kindles, and memory cards. It has extra (free) maintenance tools to keep your Mac healthy. The ’Pro’ version has addition features well worth the price.

Disk Drill is an excellent utility that has a place on every hard drive, especially if you use an iPhone, digital camera, or other digital devices.Erica Marceau @ technologytell.com

If you are using ’Time Machine’ to backup your Mac, we can recommend Back-In-Time. This lets you browse the incremental backups or see the history of a particular file/folder, and a lot of other stuff Time Machine does not.

If you want total control of your Time Machine backups then Back-In-Time from TRI-EDRE is your new best friend! Enhance your file recovery with tons of info and options.Devs @ MacX

Fast and easy image-based MacOS backup solution. Backup your data to APFS, HFS+ or even exFAT-formatted disks. Use various storage devices, including Windows-formatted disks. Complete system migration to another Mac via a flash drive or external hard drive.

Paragon Backup and Recovery might essentially do the same as you can do with ’Disk Utilities’, but it’s a lot easier – and the ability to create a Bootable Recovery Disk + save backup images to just about any storage is really practical.Devs @ MacX

Permute from Charlie Monroe Software is the perfect companion for Downie! Convert your newly downloaded video to just about any format, size and container - with ease.

Buying Permute (after we bought Downie) seemed like a ”No-Brainer”. Yes, there are great free media-converting apps out there, but none as smooth and hassle-free as Permute. Seamlessly interacting with Downie or just as a stand-alone app, Permute is a great media-converter!Dev @ MacX

The free MediaHuman Audio Converter let you convert your audio to all the audio-formats most players use – even FLAC and OGG.

Easy convert audio to your needed format with easy queue and format selection. Easy to customize settings. Available for Mac and Windows. They made other great tools for Ubuntu as well.Dev @ MacX

If free video-converters is your thing, then Miro Video Converter is worth a try. 100% free, open-source, yet converts to any format and any device.

For a free app, I was surprised that Miro Video Converter support so many formats. It has presets for just about any device, so converting your video is really just ”Drag-and-Drop” – It even supports multi-cores, making converting videos even faster. Made for Windows and Linux too.Dev @ MacX

Whether you want a video-converter with presets for many devices, or you want to fiddle with the settings yourself HandBrake give you full control of the size, quality/bitrate, audio, cropping, subtitles and finished format. Available for Mac, Windows and Ubuntu.

- An amazing and easy to use video transcoder app that just gets the job done. With an abundance of useful features, you will be able to fine-tune your video to your liking.
- Absolutely amazing for cutting, merging, and converting videos between many formats. Highly recommended.Users @ MacUpdate.com

With Commander One you can use two panels at once, set up your very own hotkeys for any action, and way more. Moreover it is a free software that can be a great OS X Finder alternative.

Best replacement of Total Commander for Mac switchers. Approved by Christian Ghisler as Total Commander for OS X.eltima.com

Dual-pane workflow made simple! Nimble Commander features all the necessary tools for dual-pane work you need: File Search, File Viewing, File Renaming, Connectivity, Editing Attributes, etc. all in a nimple gui. Download and try the free version, or upgrade to Pro and get a long list of other useful tools.

Nimble Commander is one those apps that you just know how to use at first launch. Everything works as you think it would, yet everything is customizable. Every hotkey can be changed if you like – and there are a lot of them! (that’s a good thing) ”Keyboard-centric”? Yes! But done the right way!Devs @ MacX

This is a great extension of the Finder. The team at BinaryAge did a really good job enhancing the Finder with a lot of missing functions!

TotalFinder is not a replacement application, it is a plugin which improves the Finder’s functionality. This offers better interoperability with other applications which usually expect the Finder to be your only file manager.Antonin @ BinaryAge

Build on the legacy of Total Commander, DCommander from DevStorm Apps has the iconic 2-pane design to browse/copy/move/sync files and folder across drives or FTP-services.

Having the 2 panes overview is really helpful and the ’Sync folders’ really is a time-saving feature when uploading files to webservers.Devs @ MacX

Remember the old days of DOS and C64? Yes, them ”old days”. Copying and moving files was a chore. MuCommander has the same classic dual-pane interface and similar shortcut-keys as the popular Total Commander.

muCommander is a lightweight, cross-platform file manager with a dual-pane interface. It runs on any operating system with Java support (Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, *BSD, Solaris...).Devs @ MuCommander.com

A great alternative to Onyx, TinkerTool is the light companion to the bigger (commercial, but very affordable) TinkerTool System from Marcel Bresink Software-Systeme.

TinkerTool is an application which gives you access to additional preference settings Apple has built into macOS. This allows to activate hidden features in the operating system and in some of the applications that come with the system.Devs @ bresink.com

Display hidden files in the Finder, disable the startup chime, add spacers and stacks to the Dock, change the screenshot file format, run maintenance tools, tweak network settings, force empty the Trash, and tons more.

This app might be good, but we stopped supporting KoingoSW as they have a somewhat strange policy for unsubscribed newsletter users – resubscribing them without concent when the user use any of their apps! (aka they monitor app-usage closely)Devs @ MacX

Sometime you’ll get an old iMac, that even after a thorough cleaning, a reset of the SMC and a new OS, it still overheat even at light loads. Macs Fan Control can set fan speeds for each fan based on temperature or at a set RPM.

We have saved many old Macs from the recycling bin by forcing it to run fans cooler. Sometimes old SMC’s just can’t control the cooling, so by installing Macs Fan Control we got the ”heat struggling” Macs back to productivity. And the app is Free! How cool is that??Devs @ MacX

Scrutinize your website! Links, SEO, Sitemap, Spelling and more. PeacockMedia brings you the tool to check your website, online or offline, so you know it has full integrity and no broken links, no missing media, is SEO-optimized and are typo-free.

The reporting feature is worth the license fee alone – and then you get all these other great features too.Devs @ MacX

Forklift lets you connect to SFTP, FTP, WebDAV, Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Google Drive, Rackspace CloudFiles, SMB, AFP, and NFS remote volumes and easily manage your files quickly across networks. You can connect to multiple servers at a time and even copy between them with drag and drop in a dual-pane layout.

Besides supporting most web transfer protocols, Forklift has a wast range of features; Sync, Preview, Quick Open, Multi Rename, Dark Mode, Dual Pane, Favorite Sync, Dropbox Support, Reorder transfers, Sync Browsing, Tabs, Remote Editing, Archive Management, Workspaces, Git Support, File Compare to mention a few.Dev @ MacX

Sequel Pro is a fast, easy-to-use Mac database management application for working with MySQL databases.

Yeah, we know! MySQL is SO 2019, but we do have customers who still rock an old webserver that sometimes are in need of maintenance. So for these tasks we use Sequel Pro. It has a clutter-free interface and all the needed tools to manage tables and make queries, etc.Dev @ MacX

Go beyond iTunes and avoid wasting hours converting or transcoding files. Infuse’s powerful, super-efficient playback engine supports just about every video file ever created including: MKV, MP4, AVI, ISO, DVD, BDMV, and many, many others. Browse and play videos stored on a Mac, PC, NAS, or cloud service like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and Box.

Infuse 6 from FireCore is our favorite video player for iOS and Apple TV. It simply plays EVERYTHING!Devs @ MacX

Play HD Audio on your Mac with Vox Music Player. Supporting audio formats like FLAC, MP3, CUE, APE and M4A, you can clearly hear the difference.

iTunes is great for iTunes stuff, but when you want quality audio, 24bit or 5:1 playback, Vox can do it. Or try it if you are just looking for an iTunes-alternative. Available for iOS as well.Dev @ MacX

Cog is a audio player supporting most audio formats: Ogg Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, AAC, Apple Lossless, Wave/AIFF, even Tracker mod-files and more.

This free apps haven’t been updated for years, yet it plays any audio file you can throw at it – working in Catalina too. Note: Version 0.8 can be downloaded from MacUpdate.Dev @ MacX

The post-production and editing app from Apple, Final Cut Pro X is a non-linear trackless video editing and post-production application (NLE) that supports Multicam footage, compound clips, and keyword management of media files.

Our most stunning take on post‑production. Editing, audio, motion graphics, and delivery. Advanced color grading, HDR support, and ProRes RAW. 360° video editing and VR headset playback.Apple.com

We designed OpenShot Video Editor to be an easy to use, quick to learn, and surprisingly powerful video editor.

This OpenSource video editor is the bare bone of editors, but if you only need to trim or do simple editing then OpenShot is the editor for you. It’s free, Has a low ”foot print” (330MB), Avaiable for Mac/Win/Linux, Easy to use and it imports/exports most video formats.Devs @ MacX

Kdenlive is an open source video editor that allows you to use and arrange several audio and video tracks, each one can be locked or muted to your convenience.

Kdenlive is an acronym for KDE Non-Linear Video Editor. It is primarily aimed at the GNU/Linux platform but also works on BSD and MacOS. It is currently being ported to Windows as a GSOC project.kdenlive.org

Having many features and setting to extract, transcode and stream movies, MakeMKV can output video, audio and subtitles from DVD and Blu-ray discs with ease.

Extracting a ”Remuxed” version of your favorite movies without 6 language audio channelse, 20 subtitle tracks and still having chapters, is easy with MakeMKV, and saving you a lot of space on your Media Center.Devs @ MacX

MKVToolNix is a set of commandline tools to create, alter and inspect Matroska files. GUI a available for some OS’s.

These powerful tools can do just about any manipulation of MKV-files, but having a GUI is nice if you don’t like to remember endless number of settings - yet these many settings are what makes this tool great.Devs @ MacX