Now we have become very big and different from the original idea.
Here we collect awesome macOS software in various categories. Feel free to star and fork.
Any comments, suggestions? Let us know! We love PRs :) Please take a look at the contributing guidelines before opening one. Follow the awesome list.
means open source, click to open open source repo;
means free to use, or free personal license;
means App store hyperlink;
means hyperlink to a corresponding Awesome list for the item;
Awesome Mac App for macOS. Installers for the latest stable build for Mac can be downloaded here.
Reading and Writing Tools
Applications to edit text, I suggest the open-source editors
Text Editors
Bootstrap Studio - A powerful desktop app for creating responsive websites using the Bootstrap framework.
Brackets - A modern, open source text editor that understands web design.
Sublime Text - Sophisticated text editor for code, markup and prose. You'll love the slick user interface, extraordinary features and amazing performance, Sublime Text Plugins.
TextMate - Editor that brings Apple's approach to operating systems into the world of text editors.
Vim - Highly configurable text editor built to make creating and changing any kind of text very efficient, Vim Plugins.
OutlineEdit 3 - Fully-featured outline editor, for everyone who loves great structured notes. [
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SideNotes - Quick notes on the screen side. Take notes while working with other apps. Use Markdown for text formatting.
QOwnNotes - Open-source notepad with markdown support and todo list manager.
Quiver - The Programmer's Notebook, lets you easily mix text, code, Markdown and LaTeX within one note, edit code with an awesome code editor and live preview Markdown and LaTeX.
AliYuQue - Cloud note-taking knowledge management, collaboration platform, Markdown based writing, support embedded flow chart, brain diagram, timing sequence, code rendering, Sketch board creation, personal knowledge sharing, etc. Compared to youdao cloud note and evernote similar products, which include all of its functions, support knowledge sharing and more powerful creation, collaboration and editor, it comes from alibaba ant financial.
Journaling
Day One - Excellent journaling app using text, photos, video, audio, location data, and more.
Journey - Journaling app with many features and with apps for every platform available.
linked - Link your thoughts to days, distraction free.
Ebooks
Calibre - Free and open-source e-book computer software application suite which runs on multiple platforms, allows users to manage e-book collections as well as create, edit, and read e-books.
Clearview - Tabbed style e-book reader for PDF, EPUB (DRM free), CHM, and MOBI.
iChm - Ebook reader for CHM (Microsoft Compiled HTML help) files.
Kindle App - Amazon official reading app of kindle.
Klib - New way to manage highlights for Kindle and iBooks.
Scribus - Professional layout and publishing software supporting EPS and SVG import/export, and PDF support.
Leaf - Amazing news reader dedicated to help you enjoy your daily news and easily manage your subscriptions.
NetNewsWire - It’s a free and open source feed reader for macOS.
ReadKit - Mac read-later client supporting all major providers: Instapaper, Pocket and Readability. Even more, ReadKit is a full-featured RSS reader as well.
Reeder 5 - News reader for Feedbin, Feedly, Feed Wrangler and so on.
PyCharm - Powerful Python IDE, which has professional version and community version.
Rider - Cross-Platform C# IDE. It is an alternative to Visual Studio by Microsoft with the additional benefit of getting Resharper features that are not available on Visual Studio for Mac.
WebStorm - The smartest JavaScript IDE by JetBrains. FREE for Students, check here for more info.
Haskell for Mac - A Modern Development Environment for Haskell.
NetBeans IDE - Free and open-source IDE, mainly used for Java development, but supports many other languages and frameworks.
Nova - From the creators of Coda and Transmit, bring you a beautiful, fast, flexible, native Mac code editor from Panic.
Spyder - Powerful scientific environment written in Python, for Python.
Developer Utilities
BetterRename - The most powerful and complete Mac file renaming application on the market.
Beyond Compare - Compare files and folders using simple, powerful commands that focus on the differences you are interested in and ignore those you are not.
Bidbar - Manage bash commands from the menu bar and run them with keyboard shortcuts.
Cacher - Cloud-based, team-enabled code snippet manager with Gist sync, VSCode/Atom/Sublime packages and Mac/Windows/Linux/Web clients.
canSnippet - Powerful snippet management tool that works across the whole operating system, always accessible via simple keyboard shortcut.
CodeKit - Web development tool which can automatically compile Less, Sass, CoffeeScript, TypeScript, Jade and JavaScript, auto-refresh browsers and much more.
Kaleidoscope - Powerful compare tool for text, images and folders. Works perfectly with git, svn or other version control tools.
Koala - GUI application for Less, Sass, Compass and CoffeeScript compilation.
Loca Studio - Analyze, review, and edit app translations. Supports Xcode Localization Catalog (xcloc) and XLIFF 1.2 file formats.
MacSystemColors - Mac app that shows all system colors in light and dark mode for Cocoa developers.
MJML - Framework that utilizes a semantic syntax and a rich standard components library, which allow users to easily create responsive emails.
PaintCode - PaintCode is a unique vector drawing app that generates Objective-C or Swift code in real time, acting as a bridge between developers and graphic designers.
Postman - Powerful GUI platform to make your API development faster & easier, from building API requests through testing, documentation and sharing.
Katalon Studio - Simplify API, Web, Mobile Automation Tests Free. Robust. Cross-platform. Automation testers from 160 countries with YouTube channels, GitHub repositories.
Network Analysis
Charles - HTTP proxy / HTTP monitor / Reverse Proxy that enables a developer to view all of the HTTP and SSL / HTTPS traffic between their machine and the Internet.
James - Open-source proxy tool for checking and mapping requests with http as well as https.
Little Snitch - Network monitor with a world map for visualizing network connections.
mitmproxy - Interactive intercepting HTTP proxy for penetration testers and software developers.
Github CLI - gh is GitHub on the command line. It brings pull requests, issues, and other GitHub concepts to the terminal next to where you are already working with git and your code.
Glances - Glances is a cross-platform curses-based system monitoring tool.
Go2Shell - Go2Shell opens a terminal window to the current directory in Finder.
htop - htop is an interactive text-mode process viewer for Unix systems. It aims to be a better 'top'.
httpie - Modern command line HTTP client – user-friendly curl alternative with intuitive UI, JSON support, syntax highlighting, wget-like downloads, extensions, etc.
Taskbook - Tasks, boards & notes for the command-line habitat.
Termius - Free terminal tool,comparable to xshell on windows platform.
TextQL - Execute SQL against structured text like CSV or TSV.
thefuck - A interesting software that corrects errors in previous console commands.
tmux - "Terminal multiplexer", it enables a number of terminals (or windows) to be accessed and controlled from a single terminal. tmux is intended to be a simple, modern, BSD-licensed alternative to programs such as GNU screen.
VisiData - Terminal spreadsheet multitool for discovering and arranging data.
xonsh - Python-powered, cross-platform, Unix-gazing shell language and command prompt.
Zsh - Zsh is a shell designed for interactive use, although it is also a powerful scripting language.
xcodes - A command-line tool to install and switch between multiple versions of Xcode.
xxh - Bring your favorite shell wherever you go through the SSH.
Frameworks For Hybrid Applications
AppJS - Lightweight JavaScript UI library for creating mobile webapps that behave like native apps.
create-dmg - Create a good-looking DMG for your macOS app in seconds.
Electrino - Desktop runtime for apps built on web technologies, using the system's own web browser engine.
Electron - Build cross platform desktop application with JavaScript, HTML and CSS.
ionic - Build amazing native and progressive web apps with Angular and open web technologies. One app running on everything.
MacGap - Provides a lightweight JavaScript API for OS X integration, such as displaying native notifications or writing data to a file.
nw.js - Build desktop application with HTML and JavaScript. It lets you call all Node.js modules directly from DOM and enables a new way of writing applications with all Web technologies.
Navicat Data Modeler - Powerful and cost-effective database design tool which helps you build high-quality conceptual, logical and physical data models.
Assetizr - Resizing images and optimising them for web and mobile applications.
Couleurs - Simple app for grabbing and tweaking the colors you see on your screen.
Eagle App - Simple and intuitive file manager with tag and annotaion for all your design files. Supports all major source, image, RAW, video, 3D, audio, font, and office files.
ExifCleaner - Remove exif metadata from images and videos with drag and drop.
Frank DeLoupe - Color-picking tool, supports Retina.
Muzzle - A simple mac app to silence embarrassing notifications while screensharing.
BlurScreen App - Blur sensitive data instantly anywhere on screen, while recording or screen sharing. No post editing required.
Rambox - Messaging and emailing app that combines common web applications into one.
Element - Create, share communicate. Chat and call securely.
Presentify - A mac app to draw on your screen while on calls, highlight your cursor, and more.
Signal Desktop - Fast, simple, secure. Privacy that fits in your pocket.
Skype - Cross-platform application that provides video chat and voice call services. Users can exchange images, text, video and any other digital documents.
Shift - De-clutter your desktop workspace and streamline your accounts, apps, and workflows.
Slack - Awesome tool for team collaboration and communication.
Stack - Open, organize and use multiple web apps on a single screen. Stack your apps by categories or projects.
Teambition - Team collaboration tool, including many features like task plan, schedule, file sharing, instant discussion and everything you need when collaborating with other team members.
Telegram - Messaging app with a focus on speed and security.
Wavebox - A revolutionary and feature-rich Chromium browser that's built for productive working across Google Workspaces, Microsoft Teams, ClickUp, Monday, Atlassian, Asana, AirTable, Slack, and every other web app you use to get work done.
Transmit - Highly flexible and intuitive FTP client, supports SFTP, S3 and iDisk/WebDAV.
Data Recovery Tools
Data Rescue - Comprehensive and professional data recovery tool for most cases.
DiskWarrior - The world’s most advanced repair and recovery tool for Mac.
R-Studio for Mac - Powerful tool for recovering data on disks, even if their partitions are formatted, damaged or deleted.
SuperDuper! - Painless fully bootable disk backups.
Audio and Video Tools
Adapter - Free audio, video and image conversion software.
Aegisub - Free, cross-platform open source tool for creating and modifying subtitles. Aegisub makes it quick and easy to time subtitles to audio, and features many powerful tools for styling them, including a built-in real-time video preview.
Audio Profile Manager - Allows you to pin input/output devices for each particular combination of connected devices. May suppress HDMI displays from being chosen.
Ardour - Cross-platform audio software for multi-track recording and editing.
Audacity - Free, open-source, cross-platform audio software for multi-track recording and editing.
Audio Hijack - Record any application's audio, including VoIP calls from Skype, web streams from Safari, and much more.
DaVinci Resolve - Free, cross-platform video editing, color grading, video effects and audio editing software.
Elmedia Player - This media player is a super versatile app for any file format you probably may think of: FLV, MP4, AVI, MOV, DAT, MKV, MP3, FLAC, M4V are all supported as well as many others.
Stremio - Movies, TV shows, series, live television or web channels like YouTube and Twitch.tv - you can find all this on Stremio.
Stringed 2 - Music practice software designed to help users learn how to play their favorite songs.
Synfig Studio - Synfig Studio is free, open-source 2D animation software.
VLC - Free, open-source, cross-platform multimedia player as well as framework that plays most multimedia files, DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs and various streaming protocols.
VOX Player - High-definition audio player for Mac and iPhone. Music just sounds better!
XLD - Tool to decode, convert and play various 'lossless' audio files.
MusicPlus - Search, play & download music for free.
Recordia - Record audio directly from the menu bar or with a global keyboard shortcut.
Omniplayer - Best media player on Mac, support almost all format.
Audio Record and Process
GarageBand A free Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) from Apple,providing a simple interface and professional level audio production functions.
Logic Pro X A professional Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) from Apple,providing complete audio production functions along with high quality native plugins and soundtracks. With native Apple Silicon support.
iTranslate - Translate entire website instantly with its built-in browser or with iTranslate Safari extension into over 40 languages.
Ludwig - Linguistic search engine that helps you to write better in English.
Mate Translate - Translate in Safari and any app on macOS between 103 languages.
Translatium - Translate words, phrases and images between over 100 languages with dictionary, transliteration and voice output support.
Encryption
Deadbolt - The easiest file encryption tool you'll ever use. macOS-compatible, and open-source so you can trust it.
Security Tools
Antivirus One - Trusted Mac Security Protection: Protect your Mac from viruses, malware and adware. Block potential web threats and protect your Mac against vulnerabilities.
BlockBlock - Me: "Please alert me whenever anything is persistently installed." BlockBlock: "You got it"
Dylib Hijack Scanner - Simple utility that will scan your computer for applications that are either susceptible to dylib hijacking or have been hijacked.
KextViewer - View all modules on that are loaded in the OS kernel.
KnockKnock - See what's persistently installed on your Mac.
LockDown - Open-source tool for El Capitan that audits and remediates security configuration settings.
LuLu - is the free macOS firewall that aims to block unauthorized (outgoing) network traffic.
MalwareBytes - Malwarebytes crushes the growing threat of Mac malware, so you are protected and your machine keeps running silky smooth. Cybersecurity smart enough for the Mac.
Mana Security - vulnerability management app for individuals.
OverSight - Monitor mic and webcam, alerting you when the internal mic is activated, or whenever a process accesses the webcam.
ParetoSecurity - A MenuBar app to automatically audit your Mac for basic security hygiene.
Tunnelbear - Really simple VPN to browse the web privately & securely. Unblock websites around the world with applications for Mac, PC, iOS, Android & Chrome.
Tunnelblick - Free, open-source graphic user interface for OpenVPN on OS X.
eZip - An easy to use, feature-rich archiver for macOS. Supports popular formats such as RAR, ZIP, 7Z, BZ2, GZ etc. Works great with Mojave dark-mode and QuickLook.
Fileside - A modern, tiling file manager with unlimited panes.
Hazel - Automated file organization for your Mac. Responsibly and beautifully designed.
muCommander - Lightweight file manager with a dual-pane interface.
PDF Archiver - Nice tool for tagging and archiving tasks.
The Unarchiver - Unarchive many different kinds of archive files.
Unarchive One - Quickly decompress multiple different types of compressed files/compressed files to various scene compression formats.
General Tools
AirServer - Most advanced screen mirroring software receiver for Mac, PC and Xbox One.
ControlPlane - Manages configuration profiles for your Mac. Determines where you are or what you are doing based on a number of available evidence sources and then automatically reconfigures your Mac based on your preferences.
DNS Heaven - Unifies macOS DNS so applications using glibc can resolve DNS with the native stack. Mainly for use with VPNs.
TickTick - Simple and effective to-do list and task manager that helps you organize all aspects of life.
Productivity
1440 Minutes Left Today - Keep a track of how many minutes you have left until the day is over, right in your menu bar.
Alfred - Award-winning app which boosts efficiency with hotkeys, keywords, text expansion and more. Search your Mac and the web, and be more productive with custom actions to control your Mac.
BetterMouse - Smooth scroll, cursor acceleration prohibition, and powerful button/gesture remapping in one utility for 3rd-party mice. Aims for replacing those bulky and intrusive official drivers.
BetterTouchTool - Great, feature-packed app that allows you to configure many gestures for your Magic Mouse, Macbook Trackpad, Magic Trackpad and also Mouse Gestures for normal mice.
Choosy - UI, URL API and a browser extension set for managing rules where and how to open links.
Clovery - Integrate all your favorite Google services tightly with your Mac, let you access these services quickly and work more productively.
CursorSense - Mouse & trackpad driver that lets you tweak the acceleration curve and more.
Dropzone - Create a popup grid of customizable actions. Scriptable in Ruby & Python.
Hammerspoon - Tool for powerful OSX automation with the Lua scripting engine.
HapticKey - A simple utility application for MacBook with Touch Bar that triggers a haptic feedback when tapping Touch Bar.
HazeOver App that dims your background app windows so you can focus more on your main task!
Hook for Mac - Hook files together fast and easily, enabeling you to find anything related with a simple keyboard shortcut.
Hungrymark - Useful app to bookmark your files, folders, and webs, quick access your bookmarks through menu bar
iCMD - Fuzzy menubar search and vim/easymotion emulation which works globally for every native MacOS app.
Karabiner - Powerful and stable keyboard customizer for OS X.
Keyboard Maestro - Automate routine actions based on triggers from keyboard, menu, location, added devices, and more.
Keytty - App to keep your hands on the keyboard. Move, click, scroll, drag and more with a few strokes.
Lazy - Keyboard-driven commands to manage your surroundings directly from your mac.
Mos - Simple tool can offer the smooth scrolling and reverse the mouse scrolling direction on your Mac.
Mouseless - Master all of the magic keystrokes for your favorite apps & tools.
OmniPlan - The best way to visualize, maintain, and simplify your projects. Project Management made easy.
Raycast - Raycast lets you control your tools with a few keystrokes. It’s designed to keep you focused.
RescueTime - Personal analytics service that shows you how you spend your time and provides tools to help you be more productive.
SensibleSideButtons – Use the side buttons on your mouse to move forward and backward in many apps, like in Windows.
nnScreenshots - a super easy way to keep a visual record of your productivity to make it easier to fill out timesheets or just to help you review the day. Built in timesheet editor.
Strategr – No-fuss time management app. Stategr helps you maximize your productivity, giving you the quickest and most effective way to time-box your day.
Time Out - Easy break reminders, with micro-break and flexible customization if you want it.
Timing - Automatic time and productivity tracking for Mac. Helps you stay on track with your work and ensures no billable hours get lost if you are billing hourly.
Trello - A collaboration tool that organizes your projects into Kanban boards.
Workspaces - Workspaces gives you the ability you to quickly switch between different types of tasks. It allows you to select which apps to open and close when selecting a workspace.
Window Management
AltTab - Open source window switcher with window previews.
NightOwl - Automatically switch between macOS Mojave's light and dark themes by time of day or with a menu bar or keyboard shortcut.
One Switch - Mac menu bar app that adds various switches to the Mac's menu bar.
Shifty - A macOS menu bar app that gives you more control over Night Shift.
Snap - Launch an app in a snap. Ridiculously easy shortcut management.
Shareful - Supercharge the system share menu with copy, save, and open actions.
System Related Tools
AlDente - Charge limiter app for MacBooks to keep your battery healthy even longer.
Amphetamine - Override your energy saver settings and keep your Mac awake.
AdBlock One - Your New Favorite Free Ad Blocker for macOS and iOS: Stop seeing annoying ads in Safari. Open websites faster. Browse the web more safely.
AppCleaner - Small application which allows you to thoroughly uninstall unwanted apps.
Apple Silicon App Test - Browser-based tool for checking Apple Silicon app compatibility before you buy an M1 Mac.
Background Music - Automatically pause your music, set individual apps' volumes and record system audio.
Cleaner One - All-in-one Disk Cleaning Manager: Clean up your Mac and optimize its performance. Run a quick scan now to verify what's taking up your storage.
Cleaner for Xcode - Helps make your Xcode faster by removing unwanted and deprecated files.
coconutBattery - Shows live information about the battery in your Mac. Includes: manufacture date, capacity, cycle count, battery status, temperature, discharging power.
Coolant - Menubar app that lets you know when an app is consuming 100% CPU or more than a gigabyte of memory (or any arbitrary limits you choose).
DaisyDisk - Gives a great overview of disk usage. Can also make more disk-space available by cleaning up your disk.
FruitJuice - Will let you know how long to stay unplugged each day to keep your battery healthy.
gfxCardStatus - Unobtrusive menu bar app for OS X that allows MacBook Pro users to see which apps are affecting their battery life by using the more power-hungry graphics.
Gray - Pick between the light appearance and the dark appearance on a per-app basis with the click of a button.
HandShaker - Mac on the management of Android mobile phone content.
HTML5 Player - HTML 5 video player. Keep your Mac from "burning".
iStat Menus - Advanced Mac system monitor on the menubar.
iStats - Command-line tool that allows you to easily grab the CPU temperature, fan speeds and battery information on OSX.
Juice - Make your battery information a bit more interesting.
KeepingYouAwake - Alternative to Caffeine with better support for dark mode in Mac.
AnyDesk - Provides Remote access across multiple machines.
Microsoft Remote Desktop - Connect to a remote PC or virtual apps and desktops made available by your admin.
RealVNC - The original and best software for remote access across desktop and mobile.
RoyalTSX - Royal TSX is an ideal tool for system engineers and other IT professionals who need remote access to system with different protocols.
TeamViewer - Proprietary computer software package for remote control, desktop sharing, online meetings, web conferencing and file transfer between computers.
Social Networking
Chirper - A simple and tiny menu bar app for Buffer/Twitter that helps you tweet your thoughts without opening anything.
Flume - A beautiful Instagram experience for your Mac. The free version is good enough if you only want to do the browsing instead of posting.
Here are some of the major software download sites, there are a number of OSX Mac software sites
Cakebrew - GUI client for Homebrew. Install, check or remove apps, no command-line needed.
Homebrew Cask - Command line installation manager which extends Homebrew and brings its elegance, simplicity, and speed to Mac OS applications and large binaries alike.
MacPorts - Open-source community initiative to design an easy-to-use system for compiling, installing, and upgrading either command-line, X11 or Aqua based open-source software on the Mac OS X operating system.
MacUpdate Desktop - Simplifies finding, buying and installing apps for your Mac.
Mac App Download Sites
Here are some of the major software download sites, there are a number of OSX Mac software sites
Genuine Sites
alternativeTo - Also a very nice community. If you are looking for some alternative apps FOR Windows or another platform, check this site.
Slant - I personally recommend this. This is a platform where you can compare apps side-by-side, you might get an idea by seeing other users recommendations. Please contribute if you find an application from this list!