The safest place to get apps for your Mac is the App Store. Apple reviews each app in the App Store before it’s accepted and signs it to ensure that it hasn’t been tampered with or altered. If there’s ever a problem with an app, Apple can quickly remove it from the store.
Best Free Apps For Mac
If you download and install apps from the internet or directly from a developer, macOS continues to protect your Mac. When you install Mac apps, plug-ins, and installer packages from outside the App Store, macOS checks the Developer ID signature to verify that the software is from an identified developer and that it has not been altered. By default, macOS Catalina and later also requires software to be notarized, so you can be confident that the software you run on your Mac doesn't contain known malware. Before opening downloaded software for the first time, macOS requests your approval to make sure you aren’t misled into running software you didn’t expect.
Running software that hasn’t been signed and notarized may expose your computer and personal information to malware that can harm your Mac or compromise your privacy.
The warning messages displayed below are examples, and it's possible that you could see a similar message that isn't displayed here. Please use caution if you choose to install any software for which your Mac displays an alert.
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View the app security settings on your Mac
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By default, the security and privacy preferences of your Mac are set to allow apps from the App Store and identified developers. For additional security, you can chose to allow only apps from the App Store.
In System Preferences, click Security & Privacy, then click General. Click the lock and enter your password to make changes. Select App Store under the header “Allow apps downloaded from.”
Open a developer-signed or notarized app
If your Mac is set to allow apps from the App Store and identified developers, the first time that you launch a new app, your Mac asks if you’re sure you want to open it.
An app that has been notarized by Apple indicates that Apple checked it for malicious software and none was detected.
If you see a warning message and can’t install an app
If you have set your Mac to allow apps only from the App Store and you try to install an app from elsewhere, your Mac will say that the app can't be opened because it was not downloaded from the App Store.*
If your Mac is set to allow apps from the App Store and identified developers, and you try to install an app that isn’t signed by an identified developer and—in macOS Catalina and later—notarized by Apple, you also see a warning that the app cannot be opened.
If you see this warning, it means that the app was not notarized, and Apple could not scan the app for known malicious software.
You may want to look for an updated version of the app in the App Store or look for an alternative app.
If macOS detects a malicious app
If macOS detects that software has malicious content or its authorization has been revoked for any reason, your Mac will notify you that the app will damage your computer. You should move this app to the Trash and check 'Report malware to Apple to protect other users.'
If you want to open an app that hasn’t been notarized or is from an unidentified developer
Running software that hasn’t been signed and notarized may expose your computer and personal information to malware that can harm your Mac or compromise your privacy. If you’re certain that an app you want to install is from a trustworthy source and hasn’t been tampered with, you can temporarily override your Mac security settings to open it.
If you still want to open an app for which the developer cannot be verified, open System Preferences.*
Go to Security & Privacy. Click the Open Anyway button in the General pane to confirm your intent to open or install the app.
The warning prompt reappears, and if you're absolutely sure you want to open the app anyway, you can click Open.
The app is now saved as an exception to your security settings, and you can open it in the future by double-clicking it, just as you can any authorized app.
Privacy protections
macOS has been designed to keep users and their data safe while respecting their privacy.
Gatekeeper performs online checks to verify if an app contains known malware and whether the developer’s signing certificate is revoked. We have never combined data from these checks with information about Apple users or their devices. We do not use data from these checks to learn what individual users are launching or running on their devices.
Notarization checks if the app contains known malware using an encrypted connection that is resilient to server failures.
These security checks have never included the user’s Apple ID or the identity of their device. To further protect privacy, we have stopped logging IP addresses associated with Developer ID certificate checks, and we will ensure that any collected IP addresses are removed from logs.
In addition, over the the next year we will introduce several changes to our security checks:
- A new encrypted protocol for Developer ID certificate revocation checks
- Strong protections against server failure
- A new preference for users to opt out of these security protections
* If you're prompted to open the app in Finder and you're sure you want to open it despite the warning, you can control-click the app, choose Open from the menu, and then click Open in the dialog that appears. Enter your admin name and password to open the app.
1. Appcleaner
You’ll agree that the biggest thing that can clog up our computers and make them lose their initial snappiness is an overload of apps, cache, and trash. It can also be incredibly challenging to look into every file and folder to find unwanted material. If you’re looking to unclog your device and have it working super smoothly, Appcleaner is the best free app for Mac you need. Completely free, Appcleaner runs on donations and removes files and software that you don’t need anymore. With Appcleaner, you can keep your MacBook running smoothly no matter how old it is.
Appcleaner is one of the best free apps for Mac due to its simplicity and ability to clean your MacBook discreetly.
Apps Mac Free Download
2. Amphetamine
While watching a movie or waiting for lengthy downloads to finish, it’s tiring to keep wiggling our finger over the touchpad. Without doing so, the screen can go to sleep. This is where Amphetamine steps in. With a simple on/off switch, you can choose to keep your Mac or the display whenever needed.
You can keep your screen on for a designated amount of time, or while downloads are completing or specific apps are running. However, Amphetamine isn’t as simple as just that – after all, it’s one of the best apps for mac for a reason. You can use several advanced triggers to customize precisely when you need your screen to be on. Additionally, you can also keep the system on sleep mode while the display is on. These are just a few of the features available on this stellar app. We rank this app as one of the best free apps for Mac due to the full range of features that it has.
It gets better: Amphetamine is 100% free, with no ‘pro’ version and no advertisements or pop-ups asking for reviews. All you get is a seamless experience.
3. LibreOffice
When you make the shift to an Apple OS, one of the biggest apps, you’ll feel the loss of is Microsoft Office. LibreOffice is here to help with just that. While Mac users can choose to pay for Microsoft office, it can be annoying to pay so much for such a basic app. LibreOffice comes with a full-featured suite, which has all the options offered by Microsoft. From making spreadsheets or using various word processors, you can do it all. You might be wondering what this app costs. Well, much like the other best apps for mac on this list, LibreOffice is totally free!
LibreOffice can easily be one of the apps you will use most frequently. It can help you in making presentations, notes, creating documents, and much more. The versatility of this app, coupled with the fact that it’s free, make it one of the best free apps for Mac.
4. VLC
You’ll agree that video playing or converting is one of the essential features required in our computers. This is precisely what makes VLC an essential part of your basic arsenal of the best apps for mac. Completely free, VLC in a tried and tested video playback app which can support various codecs and file formats. Additionally, VLC also supports audio and video compression methods.
There’s the best part: you can use VLC to play or convert almost any audio or video file you have, no matter how obscure it may be. When picking free apps for Mac, do consider adding VLC to your arsenal.
5. Apollo One
One of the best free apps for Mac and intended for serious photographers, Apollo One is an image viewer. This app is ranked one of the essential mac apps and lets you process RAW images in batches, view and edit any metadata, and sort through all your pictures. This is an app designed for efficiency, letting you fluidly view all your photos and videos with a single swipe. Additionally, Apollo One comes with some pretty smart features, such as locating addresses based on the pictures' GPS coordinates. This app makes it super easy to sort through and organize your photos and let you view them without losing out on image quality.
The best part? Apollo One can be used to capture video frames in a JPEG format from all videos, including 4k videos.
6. Highland 2
Built for the writers out there, Highland 2 is an app for plain text editing. Intended initially for screenwriting and stage plays, the app is a wonderful way to organize your scripts in industry-standard formatting. In addition to this, it can also format any exported scripts. Furthermore, this essential mac app can be used for novel writers as well!
It gets better: Highland 2 sets itself apart with a unique feature not found in many other plain text editors. This feature is the gender analysis feature. It helps you assess how many lines are spoken by each of your characters, and categorizes it by gender. Highland 2 is one of the best free apps for Mac on the App Store.
7. WaveBox
If you want all your workflow organized into one–free – app, you should download WaveBox on your Mac right away. WaveBox allows you to create tabs for over 1200 apps, letting you keep your browser windows minimum. You can easily organize different apps such as Gmail, Office 365, and Slack and build dedicated spaces to deal with them. This alone can be a great help if you get overwhelmed by dozens of different tabs. An exceptional web wrapper, WaveBox, can increase productivity and efficiency at no cost. If an organization is what you’re after, no app can do it better than WaveBox, as it is truly the best free app for mac for organization.
8. Slack
This is one of the best free apps for MacBook pro-2020 for business communication and collaboration. If you want to keep your team seamlessly integrated and communicating effectively, Slack is the perfect free app for mac that you need. It can help you keep all messages, services, and other data related to work. Additionally, Slack also allows calls, which can lead to more personalized communication. With all your work divided into channels, it can be much easier to get a clearer picture of areas you need to work on.
The bottom line: Slack can help send your team’s productivity skyrocket. If you pick Slack and any of the other best free apps for mac for organization on this list, your business can be revolutionized.