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What are your essential macOS apps?

Kinda depends what your intended use is for your computer?
If it's video editing then Handbrake would be useful, and VLC player.

Not sure if I agree with a app uninstaller program.

Something which would be helpful for backups and system images are:
Carbon Copy Cloner, and SuperDuper.

Get another browser like Firefox so you can use an extension like uBlock for some better protection on the web.
 
If you have a need for a Check Book program, try Check Book or Check Book Pro. One is free the other is reasonably priced and usually has a discount available.

May want to look for KB Cleaning Tool - Free and is used when you want to clean your Keyboard keys - seems to be a frequent pass time on MacBooks. Freeezes your keyboard while you clean away on the keys.
 
slg1986 said:
Hi everyone,
I recently bought a macbook air m1 and I am very satisfied. I come from Windows but after buying iPhone and iPad I decided to get the legendary Air too!
What are the essential software(free and paid) that you recommend I install? I installed only capcut for video editing and a friend told me appcleaner and iina... then what?
Thank you all
Click to expand...

This should give a good starting point with exception of Top Notch (as your Air has no notch)
 
Apple Remote Desktop

Apple Configurator 2

Microsoft Office

VLC

Transmission

Steam (For a diminished number of 64-bit Intel Games; thank you macOS Catalina)

Battle.net (for Hearthstone, WarCraft III: Reforged, StarCraft: Remastered, StarCraft II, Heroes of the Storm, and Diablo III)

Final Cut Pro

Motion

Compressor

Adobe Photoshop

VMware Fusion (More important on my Intel Macs)

VirtualBuddy (on my Apple Silicon Macs)

JAMF Composer

Daisy Disk (and GrandPerspective and DiskInventoryX by association)

Slack

Discord

Facebook Messenger

Chrome

Edge

Firefox
 
My essential for apps that don't come with MacOS by default...

Google Chrome - for web browsing
Telegram - for instant messaging
Discord - for game and instant messaging servers
Apple iMovie - for simple video projects
Apple GarageBand - for loop-based music creation and similar projects
Apple Final Cut Pro - for YTPs and other elaborate video projects
Adobe Photoshop - for digital image manipulation and advanced editing
Audacity - for audio recording and editing
Roxio Toast Pro - for authoring discs
Leawo Blu-Ray Player - for watching Blu-Ray discs
Microsoft Word - for word-processing documents
Microsoft Excel - for spreadsheets
Microsoft PowerPoint - for slideshow presentations
ScreenFlow - for screen-recording
ScummVM - for emulating old Scumm-based PC games
VMware Fusion - for running a Windows XP virtual machine to run old PC games (on Intel Macs)
UTM - for running a Windows XP virtual machine to run old PC games (on Apple Silicon Macs)
 
Those of you who is using Forklift and Carbon Copy Cloner, any difference between those when backup between 2 drives? I already had Forklift 3, but since Carbon Copy Cloner will increase in price on Feb 15, I was wondering if I should get it before that date.
 
VSCode
Xcode
GIMP
Inkscape
Microsoft Office (still undistputed king of office apps IMO)
VLC player

That's some of the GUI apps I cannot function with, but there are also many command line apps as well, although I think this thread is not about them.
 
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