List of Mac Software
From Mac Guides
This is an alphabetical list of applications available for Mac OS X in a variety of categories.
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Application Launchers
Application Launchers are simple utilities that usually make it faster to open an application hidden in your /Applications folder without crowding your dock. They're usually faster than Spotlight and have other functions besides app launching that make them much more useful, though sometimes their user interface is so minimal it can be difficult to figure them out at first, once you do learn to use them, you can sometimes feel blind using a computer that doesn't have your favorite application launcher installed.
| Program Name | Developer | Price | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Butler | Many Tricks | Free (Donationware) | Highly configurable app launcher that can also run AppleScripts. |
| Quicksilver | Blacktree | Free | Open source highly configurable app launcher that can also run AppleScripts and Terminal commands and perform Actions via plug-ins and do lightweight file management. It learns you most often used applications and allows you to launch them via keyboard shortcuts or via the normal interface. The UI is also very minimal making it difficult to learn. Guide. |
| Sapiens | Donelleschi Software | $19.95 | Cursor driven app launcher that gives you quick access to your most often used applications by making a circle with the mouse/trackpad cursor and by learning what your most often used applications are. |
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Browsers
These programs allow you to browse the internet.
| Program Name | Developer | Price | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Camino | Mozilla | Free | Mac only fast Cocoa based browser from the makers of Firefox. |
| Firefox | Mozilla | Free | Cross platform highly extensible browser. |
| Omniweb | Omnigroup | Now Free | Mac only browser based on a modified webkit engine. |
| Opera | Opera | Free | Cross platform; also handles email and feeds. |
| Safari | Apple | With OS X | Apple's default web browser |
| Shiira | Shiira | Free | A WebKit based browser for Mac OS X. |
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Business and Office Applications
Applications commonly used in professional communications, office correspondence, and running a business. These include software applications for composing documents, creating presentations, managing spreadsheets, and productivity tools.
| Program Name | Developer | Price | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| AbiWord | AbiSource | Free | AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft® Word. It is suitable for a wide variety of word processing tasks. |
| Daylite | Daylite3 CRM | $189 | Full featured CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software for professionals and small to medium sized businesses. Includes project management modules, contact management, calendar, mail merge, lead & opportunity management, reporting. A great replacement for ACT for you switchers! Plugins available extend functionality to OS X Mail integration and billing. |
| iWork | Apple | $79 | Apple's Office Suite, includes Keynote (Presentations), Pages (DTP and Word Processing), and Numbers (Spreadsheets and Charts). |
| Microsoft Office | Microsoft | $149 EDU/$399 Standard | Microsoft's comprehenisve office suite |
| NeoOffice | NeoOffice | Free | Free office suite based on OpenOffice, can open OpenXML (Office 2007) documents. |
| OmniGraffle | The Omni Group | $79.95 Standard/$149.95 Pro | Premier Diagramming Software for Mac OS X, the Professional edition also has Visio support among other features. |
| OmniOutliner | The Omni Group | $39.95 Standard/$69.95 Pro | Outline application that's also great for taking, organizing, and searching notes. |
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Drawing Applications
These programs allow you do draw pictures on your Mac.
| Program Name | Developer | Price | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Intaglio | Purgatory Design | $89 | A Powerful and well integrated vector drawing program |
| Paintbrush | Michael Schreiber | Free | A Basic easy-to-use Paint application for the Mac. |
| Pixelmator | Pixelmator | $59 | A moderately advanced image editing application, similar to Adobe Photoshop Elements. |
| Seashore | Mark Pazolli | Free | Open source image editor based on GIMP, but far less complex. |
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Feed Readers
These programs pull content feeds off of a server, such as blogs, news websites, and rumor sites. They can also pull audio and video content and offer a way to sort and filter content as well.
| Program Name | Latest Version | Developer | Supports | Price | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NetNewsWire | 3.1.6 | NewsGator | Atom/RSS | Free | Can sync with the free online NewsGator and makes it easy to add search engine and social bookmark feeds from directly in NetNewsWire. Also works with desktop social bookmark clients and MarsEdit. |
| NewsFire | 1.5 v72 | David Watanabe | Atom/RSS | Free | Lightweight feed reader from David Watanabe. |
| Vienna | 2.2.2 | Vienna | Atom/RSS | Free | Open Source newsreader for Mac OS X. |
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See Also
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FTP Clients
These programs allow you to send files to and receive files from remote computers.
| Program Name | Developer | Price | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cyberduck | Cyberduck | Free | Free FTP/SFTP Client |
| Fetch | FetchSoftworks | $25 | An easy to use FTP client with features such as automatic support for many common archive formats and image and text editing directly on the server. A 15 day trial is available. |
| Interarchy | nolobe | $59 | Powerful and versatile FTP tool. |
| Transmit | Panic | $30 (shareware) | Full-featured FTP client. |
| YummyFTP | YummySoftware | $25 | Robust FTP applicaton with file sync, scheduling, remote editing, filtering, and more. |
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Games
These allow you to have fun on your Mac.
| Program Name | Developer | Price | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mine Swept | Malarkey Software | Free | Mine Sweeper clone |
| Quinn | Quinn | Free | A falling blocks game, like Tetris. |
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See Also
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Instant Messaging and Communication
These applications allow you to communicate with other people.
| Program Name | Developer | Price | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| aMSN | aMSN Project | Free | An open source MSN client |
| Adium | Adium | Free | Instant messaging client that connects to practically every IM network. |
| iChat | Apple | With OS X | Instant messaging client included with Mac OS X, supports 3 way video chat, works with AIM and Jabber on other platforms. |
| Colloquy | Colloquy | Free | A good IRC client. |
| Skype | Skype | Free | Skype client for Mac OS X, supports video chat. |
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See Also
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Media Conversion/Importing Applications
iTunes can import audio CDs but to import DVDs and to convert videos from one format to another you need another application.
| Program Name | Developer | Price | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| FFMpegX | Major | $15 (shareware) | Front end application for command line based FFMPEG, can convert practically anything. |
| Handbrake | Handbrake | Free | Program that rips DVD's for use with the Apple TV and iPod. |
| iSquint | iSquint | Free | Video converter for the iPod, faster than Quicktime. |
| Mac The Ripper | Mac The Ripper | Free | Rips DVD's to your hard drive |
| MPEG Streamclip | Squared 5 | Free | Converts videos between a large number of formats. |
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Mac Maintenance and Backup Applications
These applications allow you to backup data and maintain your Mac.
| Program Name | Developer | Price | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| AppDelete | AppDelete | $5 (Shareware) | Application for uninstalling other applications properly. |
| AppZapper | AppZapper | $13 | Application for uninstalling other applications properly. |
| Onyx | Titanium Software | Free | Application for maintaining your Mac. |
| Superduper! | Shirt Pocket | $27.95 (Shareware) | Application for backing up your Mac. |
| Tracker | Tracker | $45.00 (with 14 other applications) | Can track anything happening on your Mac - to uninstall other applications, to do anything. |
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Media Players
These applications allow you to listen to music and watch video on your Mac.
| Program Name | Developer | Price | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cog | Sourceforge | Free | Simple fast music player that plays lots formats, playlist based. |
| Flip4Mac | Flip4Mac | Free | Allows you to play wmv videos with Quicktime |
| iTunes | Apple | With OS X | World famous Jukebox software for organising music, podcasts and video. |
| mPlayer | The MPlayer Project | Free | Media player that can play a huge number of formats. |
| Perian | Perian | Free | Adds a lot more format support to quicktime so it can play a lot more kinds of video. |
| QTAmateur | Michael Ash | Free | Simple QuickTime based player. |
| VLC | VLC | Free | Media player that can play a huge number of formats. |
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See also
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P2P
These programs allow you to download files from other users over the Internet.
| Program Name | Developer | Price | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acquisition | Xlife | $20 | Native Mac interface on top of Limewire's P2P Core |
| Mojo | Deusty | $10.95 | Allows you to connect to your friends' iTunes library over the Internet or local network and download songs. |
| Transmission | m0k | Free | Lightweight BitTorrent client for OS X |
| Xtorrent Pro | xtorrentp2p.com/ Xlife | $20 | Powerful BitTorrent client for Mac |
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Personal Organisation
These programs help manage your life including calendar and address book applications.
| Program Name | Developer | Price | Comments | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Address Book | Apple | With OS X. | Address book application included with Mac OS X | |
| Address Book Server | AddressBookServer.com | From £15.00 for 2 Users onwards | Share contacts from Address Book and events and tasks from iCal with other users on same mac or network. Contacts are stored on your own Address Book Server, letting you maintain control. Integration potential with relational database also provided. | |
| Address Book X LDAP | AddressBookServer.com | £15.00 | Transfer contacts from Address Book to central LDAP directory. The LDAP directory is updated as changes are made to the local Address book. | |
| Alarm Clock | Robbie Hanson | Free | Easy to use alarm clock with timer and stopwatch | |
| Cram | SimpleLeap Software | $29.99 | Flashcard and multiple-choice testing app that uses images and sound to help prepare users for any kind of test material. Cram for Mac was chosen as a "Apple Staff Pick". | |
| Entourage | Microsoft | With MS Office ($149 EDU/$399) | Microsofts e-mail/calendar/address book application | |
| iCal | Apple | With OS X | Calendar application included with Mac OS X | |
| iProcrastinate | Craig Otis | Free | Assignment organisation application mainly aimed at students. | |
| iSync | Apple | With OS X | 1-Click Mobile Phone syncing with Address Book/iCal, check if your phone is compatible with the devices list. | |
| OmniFocus | The Omni Group | $79.95 | Project and Action management software from the OmniGroup that was developed with input from Merlin Mann following the principles outlined in "Getting Things Done" by David Allen. |
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Photography Software
| Program Name | Developer | Price | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aperture | Apple | $299 | Professional Photo organisation software |
| iPhoto | Apple | With Mac/$79 with iLife | Basic photo editing and organisation software |
| Photoshop Lightroom | Adobe | $299 | Professional Photo organisation software |
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Programming
These applications help you with developing new applications.
| Program Name | Developer | Price | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| ACP | ACP | $79 (subscription) | Comprehensive arsenal of tools for the systems developer and administrator. |
| Eclipse | Eclipse Project | Free | Free well featured Java development package has plugin support for programming in other languages too. |
| TextMate | MacroMates | €39 | Popular localized text editor. |
| BBEdit | Bare Bones Software | $125 | Professional HTML and text editor. |
| Xcode | Apple | Free with Mac and Free ADC membership | Apple's development suite, best for Cocoa/Carbon but also supports Java, installing it also installs the Unix developer tools (make, gcc et al). |
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Scientific Applications
Software used in the sciences for scientific research and learning.
| Program Name | Developer | Price | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grapher | Apple | With OS X | 2D and 3D graphing program that draws graphs from simple curves to differential equations and vector fields. |
| Mathematica | Wolfram Research | $1880 (Standard) $140 (Student) | Mathematical application for conducting scientific research. |
| MATLAB | MathWorks | $1900 (Standard) $100 (Student) | Mathematical application for conducting scientific research, best for calculations involving vectors and matrices. |
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Web Development
Software used for making websites
| Program Name | Developer | Price | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| BBEdit | Bare Bones | $125 Individual, $49 Educational | "The leading professional HTML and text editor for the Macintosh. Specifically crafted in response to the needs of Web authors and software developers, this award-winning product provides an abundance of high-performance features for editing, searching, and manipulation of text." (The free version of BBEdit is TextWrangler.) |
| Coda | Panic | $79 (normally $99)
There is also $10 off for Transmit 3 owners. | New All-in-one Web development and uploading application from Panic, with Live Preview of your website. |
| Dreamweaver | Adobe | $399 (upgrade $199)
Also part of some of the Adobe CS3 suites. | The professional web development application with a huge number of features. |
| iWeb | Apple | Free with a new Mac/Part of iLife ($79) | Simple WYSIWYG website creation application that is part of iLife, it is easier to create sites that work with .Mac, though you can use another web host fairly easily. |
| KompoZer | KompoZer | Free | KompoZer is a complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing. |
| Rapidweaver | Realmac Software | $40 | More advanced WYSIWYG application that has lots of templates and is more flexible than iWeb. |
| skEdit | skti | $34.95 | Text Editor with code completion, code folding, project manager, S/FTP, subversion integration, snippets and user scripts. Produced by Apple software engineer Sean Kelly. |
| Taco Html Edit | Taco Software | Free | HTML editor with syntax colouring and live preview. |
| TextWrangler | Bare Bones | Free | Powerful, general purpose text editor, and Unix and server administrator’s tool. The free version of BBEdit. |
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See Also
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