180
votes

Please Search Prior To Posting!

There are many applications already listed. In all likelihood, this includes the one you are thinking of. Please check the existing answers to avoid duplicates, and the resulting cleanup it necessitates.

To search, use the search box in the upper-right corner. To search the answers of the current question, use inquestion:this. For example:

inquestion:this Evernote

If it hasn't already been posted, please follow a few simple rules when adding it as an answer.

Rules

  1. Limit to one application per answer.

  2. Add a short description of the application.

  3. Add a link to the website in the name of the application if possible (no direct downloads).

  4. Use ## [appName](link) for citing the application name.

  5. Only Mac OS X (not iOS, OS 9, compatible, etc) applications. All versions of OS X are accepted, but if the application requires a specific version please note.

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  • 15
    Voted to close — a good question, but we really should avoid subjective ones here.
    – apostlion
    Commented Aug 17, 2010 at 20:19
  • 19
    @Apostlion: Simply because it's subjective does not mean it can't be answered. There are (community defined) "good" applications that are useful on a daily basis.
    – Josh K
    Commented Aug 17, 2010 at 20:22
  • 27
    Voted to reopen - it is subjective, but a popular and useful style of question, if kept as a wiki and not repeated too much. These questions are mostly accepted on gadgets.stackexhange.com for example.
    – Jon Hadley
    Commented Aug 17, 2010 at 21:08
  • 10
    Can we make this Community Wiki? And also 1 app per answer? Much easier to check if something has already been said and to edit to add information about said app. Thank you.
    – Loïc Wolff
    Commented Aug 19, 2010 at 20:39
  • 11
    I did a lot of cleanup. Changed all the app names to ## (because it was the most commonly used in the existing answers. Moved links so that they were within the app names. Removed some first-person descriptors.
    – Robert S Ciaccio
    Commented Aug 23, 2010 at 3:18

239 Answers 239

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230
votes

Dropbox

Put your files into your Dropbox on one computer, and they'll be instantly available on any of your other computers that you've installed Dropbox on.

7
  • Not just Mac though.
    – Moshe
    Commented Sep 12, 2010 at 17:44
  • 9
    @Moshe: Sure, many of the apps mentioned (VLC, Chrome, Skype, Evernote, ...) aren't only available for Mac. That doesn't matter.
    – Jonik
    Commented Sep 16, 2010 at 20:31
  • 1
    I find it surprising dropbox comes up first... This would never happen with a "Windows Programs you can't live without" in a windows community.
    – cregox
    Commented Dec 23, 2010 at 13:09
  • 2
    @Cawas - Maybe because Dropbox has Mac spirit: it just works.
    – mouviciel
    Commented Jul 28, 2011 at 15:31
  • 4
    It is of note that Dropbox has had a sordid history with security and underhanded practices that involve dealing with authorities: news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20072755-281/… and paranoia.dubfire.net/2011/04/…
    – user10355
    Commented Sep 19, 2011 at 2:20
220
votes

Terminal

Terminal.app opens a UNIX terminal and allows you to access many power-user tools and features, just as you would on a machine running Linux or BSD.

7
  • 7
    Ditto. Open permanently and the main reason I moved from PC's - a decent unix access point.
    – Jon Hadley
    Commented Aug 23, 2010 at 7:24
  • 7
    iTerm is even better.
    – neoneye
    Commented Aug 28, 2010 at 12:02
  • 21
    What about iTerm2 ?
    – Studer
    Commented Aug 30, 2010 at 18:45
  • 4
    Visor is a great addition--a keystroke slides your terminal in from the top of the screen.
    – Dan Ray
    Commented Dec 2, 2010 at 14:32
  • 6
    Forget terminal + visor. iTerm 2 offers visor plus much much more... Switched to few weeks ago, will never go back.
    – Vincent
    Commented Apr 24, 2011 at 15:42
182
votes

Preview

A lot of people (especially newcomers) completely overlook what the humble built-in Preview app can do. Apart from handling PDFs (including printing them in various layouts etc), you can join PDF files together with it (open the sidebar and start dragging pdf files into it, rearrange pages etc).

You can crop & resize images, adjust colour & saturation (etc), save as different image format and even add text & simple diagrammatical annotations to pictures.

Like a lot of the built-in software, there's an awful lot of flexibility that you simply don't appreciate at first because it's hidden in the GUI - as opposed to huge nested menus of functions, you have to try things with the mouse - often things just work!

10
  • 1
    @robsoft: I didn't know about the joining of PDFs. Can you explain how this happens? (Or am I misunderstanding you?) IE: document1.pdf and document2.pdf and then save it out as a merged document.pdf? I've tried the obvious stuff and it doesn't seem to work.
    – Cameron Conner
    Commented Aug 20, 2010 at 20:25
  • 6
    @Cameron - sure, I didn't get this at first. It's not totally intuitive. First, open a PDF document. Press Shift-Cmd-D (or select View Sidebar from View menu). Now drag another PDF file (from Finder, Desktop etc) onto the PDF file you can see in the sidebar (drop your 2nd doc on top of the 1st, not into blank area of sidebar). Preview will join the documents together (you can revert, or save, save as, etc). All of the pdf stuff seems to be driven through the sidebar. Let me know if you get it, otherwise I'll try make a little online tutorial. :-)
    – robsoft
    Commented Aug 21, 2010 at 14:15
  • That's brilliant! No longer do I have to wait for bloated Acrobat to open do merge documents. My issue was I opened both PDFs up at once, which stuck them both in the sidebar as separate PDFs, and wouldn't let me do it. Trick is to just open the one, and then do the dragging. Thanks much!
    – Cameron Conner
    Commented Aug 21, 2010 at 20:48
  • awesome! I didn't know either about the merging. Why would they hide it that much?
    – Stephane
    Commented Aug 24, 2010 at 21:17
  • 4
    Also worth noting... you can annotate pdfs using Preview. This is useful for all sorts of things; adding simple shapes to highlight/emphasize things, adding (colored) text for note-taking, etc.
    – eykanal
    Commented Sep 12, 2010 at 22:17
158
votes

Growl

Growl is a well-known 'notification' system for the Mac; many different programs support Growl and will pass notifications to it. You have a surprising degree of control over how the notifications appear, how they group themselves together, how they are dismissed from the screen etc. This can be configured universally or on an app-by-app basis, so it's very flexible.

One of the most useful features for me has been the way you can configure it to send notifications to selected other Macs on the network - I can leave one of my Macs doing something (such as downloading a large file) while I'm using my other Mac, and when the first Mac has finished doing its stuff the notification will pop-up on the Mac I'm in front of.

Growl is free, though you can donate to the cause!

Programs that can use Growl include Coda, Dropbox, Firefox, Handbrake, NetNewsWire, SuperDuper!, Transmit, and also Mail & Safari (via helper plugins).

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  • 10
    Ugh, I can not express to you how much I loath Growl. It's even worse that tons of apps (like Dropbox) install it silently without asking, or simply crash and burn (like Max) if it isn't installed without giving you any error messages or means of troubleshooting.
    – Bryson
    Commented Jun 3, 2011 at 17:07
  • Cannot live without Growl!
    – daviesgeek
    Commented Sep 5, 2011 at 18:20
  • 1
    @Bryson what I like about Growl is that it gives a central place where I can control all notifications for apps, whether I want them to pop up or just "shut up about it". I'm surprised that Apple didn't add a standard Notification system to Lion, it seems like centralizing this should be the role of the OS.
    – Andrew Vit
    Commented Sep 7, 2011 at 1:56
  • @Bryson Both of those issues are the fault of the apps in question, there's not a lot Growl can do about apps not using it properly.
    – calum_b
    Commented Nov 13, 2011 at 13:27
  • 1
    Apps no longer need to have Growl installed in order to use Growl notifications, so users would only need to purchase it if they want to customize their notifications. This also means apps no longer need to secretly install Growl. More info on their note to developers. Growl is still open source, too, and there's a link to the source code on that page as well.
    – joelseph
    Commented Feb 9, 2012 at 21:08
139
votes

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is a lightweight, minimalistic web browser based off the open source project, Chromium.

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  • 4
    Though some Firefox features still aren't matched in Chrome, I nowadays find myself mostly using Chrome on OS X because it's just so much faster.
    – Jonik
    Commented Aug 28, 2010 at 9:42
  • 4
    before firefox4 i had moved almost completely to chrome, but yay for ff4 (esp. tab grouping)
    – Rohan Monga
    Commented Oct 31, 2010 at 15:55
  • 19
    Quote of the day: "I just ditched Firefox for Chrome. I feel like I just left my wife and kids for a 19 year old cheerleader."
    – Jonik
    Commented Nov 7, 2010 at 12:31
  • 1
    Chrome has also had a lot of trouble with caching (specifically clearing cache) in the recent releases. As a web developer, it's a huge problem. I'm on the verge of moving back to FF.
    – EmmyS
    Commented Jun 23, 2011 at 16:28
  • 3
    After Lion came out, I switched to Safari because Chrome is way too slow at adapting the goodness.
    – Dan
    Commented Sep 9, 2011 at 23:22
133
votes

Homebrew

"The missing package manager for OS X". Like MacPorts and Fink, but simpler to use and easy to contribute to.

7
  • Beats MacPorts and Fink right out the water!
    – bastibe
    Commented Nov 1, 2010 at 20:10
  • 3
    I love homebrew. Much better than MacPorts. Uses existing libraries that come with OS X to cut down compile times.
    – Jack Chu
    Commented Nov 2, 2010 at 22:29
  • Soon to be not so missing when the Mac app store comes out... :-P
    – Ricket
    Commented Nov 18, 2010 at 0:12
  • 5
    @Ricket: I think those are orthogonal. Homebrew is for CLI Open Source programs.
    – LennyAskDifferent
    Commented Nov 18, 2010 at 8:39
  • @Ricket - It will never make the app store. It has too much functionality that significantly violates the (ridiculous) app store guidelines.
    – Fake Name
    Commented Sep 20, 2011 at 19:27
130
votes

VLC media player

At its simplest, it's a video player that'll play nearly anything. File extensions supported include: mov, mkv, flv, wmv.

It's actually considerably more powerful than that in terms of streaming and converting, but even as a straight up video player, it's impressive.

9
  • 8
    I really can't stand VLC. Buggy, extremely difficult to configure, ugly as hades... the only thing it has going for it is the sheer number of different formats it will play. Why should I have to be an expert in video and audio codecs to configure my player? Movist beats this one by far.
    – Robert S Ciaccio
    Commented Sep 12, 2010 at 22:51
  • 1
    I've never had luck with VLC. It is constantly crashing, and terribly buggy. Seconding Movist a hundred times.
    – Bryson
    Commented Sep 15, 2010 at 22:20
  • I always loved VLC... but try MPlayer guys. It's listed here already and it's awesome!
    – cregox
    Commented Dec 23, 2010 at 13:10
  • 4
    Never configured anything on VLC, it works for me out of the box, with flv, wmv, mkv, mp4, avi, mov, mpeg. Unexpected crashes do happen, you have to deal with it, but other than that, it's great.
    – Petruza
    Commented Feb 4, 2011 at 14:10
  • 4
    Use MplayerX for Mac, it's free on Mac App Store. Although i prefer the command line version mplayer
    – Lamnk
    Commented Apr 6, 2011 at 13:43
130
votes

Xcode

A good IDE for cocoa developers. Xcode 5 is now available on the Mac App Store.

8
  • It's a great IDE, and it's FREE.
    – Warren P
    Commented Sep 17, 2010 at 1:35
  • @Warren P: Well, Xcode 4 isn’t free.
    – Mathias Bynens
    Commented Mar 14, 2011 at 12:02
  • @Mathias Well.. They say that if you pay up the developer's licence it is? (not that I would call that free, but still)
    – Zolomon
    Commented Mar 17, 2011 at 21:39
  • Xcode4 is free again.
    – mouviciel
    Commented Jul 28, 2011 at 15:32
  • 1
    Xcode is great. It is the reason I got a Mac.
    – Josiah
    Commented Oct 14, 2012 at 22:44
126
votes

1Password

1Password can create strong, unique passwords for you, remember them, and restore them, all directly in your web browser.

3
  • 3
    +100 I can't even remember my password now
    – nanda
    Commented Aug 31, 2010 at 12:37
  • I use PasswordWallet for the same thing, but either seems crucial.
    – Michael H.
    Commented Oct 16, 2010 at 3:21
  • 5
    LastPass does the same thing for a lot less money, and it's available cross-platform (including Linux) so you can keep your passwords synced regardless of where you are and what system you're on.
    – EmmyS
    Commented Jun 23, 2011 at 16:24
116
votes

TextMate

TextMate brings Apple's approach to operating systems into the world of text editors. By bridging UNIX underpinnings and GUI, TextMate cherry-picks the best of both worlds to the benefit of expert scripters and novice users alike.

If you’re looking for a good editor, Sublime Text 2 is quite good too by now!

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  • 30
    TextMate 2.0 is the new Duke Nukem Forever ;-)
    – Chealion
    Commented Aug 21, 2010 at 15:19
  • It's funny, Textmate, along with a browser and Terminal is open almost all the time on my desktop, but whilst it's a great text editor I could 'live' with the alternatives.
    – Jon Hadley
    Commented Aug 23, 2010 at 7:23
  • 1
    The CMD T shortcut would be hard for me to live without.
    – neoneye
    Commented Aug 30, 2010 at 17:18
  • @neoneye, that's why I use the Command-T (Mac)VIM extension :)
    – Lloeki
    Commented Jul 28, 2011 at 16:35
  • 6
    If you're into TextMate, have a look at Sublime Text 2. You won't be disappointed.
    – Dan
    Commented Oct 13, 2011 at 12:30
109
votes

Alfred

Alfred is a productivity application for Mac OS X, which aims to save you time in searching your local computer and the web. Whether it's maps, Amazon, eBay, Wikipedia, you can feed your web addiction quicker than ever before.

It's a wonderful piece because it enables you to:

  • Increase your productivity by launching apps with shortcuts
  • Instant access to web searches, bookmarks & more
  • Browse and play music from your iTunes library quickly
  • Perform actions – copy, move & email files & folders
  • Ward off RSI – skip using the mouse with easy shortcuts
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  • 9
    Buy the 'PowerPack' for this - it adds even more functionality. Alfred is a really nice little utility - replaced QuickSilver for me.
    – robsoft
    Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 17:12
  • @robsoft I'd love to buy the PowerPack to support Alfred, but I'm afraid that if I do this, it'll get too complicated. (File control, iTunes, ...) I like Alfred the way it is right now.
    – JFW
    Commented Nov 20, 2010 at 15:12
  • 1
    Best powerpack feature: clipboard history. I can now "copy up" three things, then paste them back out in whatever order I like. Brillig!
    – Dan Ray
    Commented Dec 2, 2010 at 14:52
  • My best friend.
    – Mattias
    Commented Mar 1, 2011 at 10:46
  • I love Alfred. I switched from Quicksilver, though I'm admittedly not a QS poweruser.
    – D. Simpson
    Commented Sep 7, 2011 at 1:33
106
votes

Handbrake

HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder.

2
  • Although it still doesn't support drag-and-drop, which is incredibly frustrating. I usually end up using the now-unsupported VisualHub.
    – Jowie
    Commented May 9, 2011 at 9:22
  • Handbrake is awesome, I use it with mythbuntu
    – Drewdin
    Commented Mar 6, 2013 at 14:49
105
votes

Adium

Adium is a free instant messaging application for Mac OS X that can connect to AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo, and more. It provides enhanced security by supporting the OTR messaging protocol out of the box.

3
  • 2
    Adium is not needed anymore starting with Lion :)
    – sorin
    Commented Jul 2, 2011 at 14:14
  • @Sorin Why is that? I don't think iChat will be able to connect to all those accounts cl.ly/87Ii
    – Loïc Wolff
    Commented Jul 4, 2011 at 11:34
  • 2
    It can do many! Even Facebook. Yeah not all of them but some of those are pretty obscure. I must say the iChat updates in Lion made me ditch Adium.
    – Paul Eccles
    Commented Aug 1, 2011 at 17:34
98
votes

Perian

Perian is a free, open source QuickTime component that adds native support for many popular video formats.

1
  • 3
    Perian developers decided to cease any further development on Perian. There won't be any new releases or fixes for MKV support if nobody stakes over.
    – user22594
    Commented Jul 18, 2012 at 14:26
95
votes

Transmission

Transmission is a cross-platform BitTorrent client that is: Free and Community-Driven. Easy. Lean. Native. Powerful.

2
  • 2
    +1, Transmission rocks. For those with servers there is even a slick web-ui.
    – Josh K
    Commented Aug 26, 2010 at 4:04
  • Great simple app.
    – boehj
    Commented Jun 16, 2011 at 10:53
92
votes

The Unarchiver

The Unarchiver is a much more capable replacement for "BOMArchiveHelper.app", the built-in archive unpacker program in Mac OS X. The Unarchiver is designed to handle many more formats than BOMArchiveHelper, and to better fit in with the design of the Finder. It can also handle filenames in foreign character sets, created with non-English versions of other operating systems.

Supported file formats include Zip, Tar-GZip, Tar-BZip2, RAR, 7-zip, LhA, StuffIt and many other more and less obscure formats.

2
  • 4
    The Unarchiver team also provide a command line utility urar that uses the same compression library, so you can extract all those obscure formats from a script.
    – ocodo
    Commented Jan 31, 2011 at 0:24
  • Can't handle everything I've thrown at it (sometimes chokes on password protected zips/rars, or split rars that may have been created on Windows(?), but I have a few backups in case. This is my default archive extract utility.
    – Chris Serra
    Commented Apr 9, 2011 at 4:09
88
votes

Caffeine

Caffeine is a tiny program that puts an icon in the right side of your menu bar. Click it to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep, dimming the screen or starting screen savers. Click it again to go back. Right-click (or ^-click) the icon to show the menu.

7
  • 2
    I use InsomniaX - any idea how it compares to Caffeine?
    – Kyle Cronin
    Commented Sep 8, 2010 at 23:59
  • I've never really understood these. When do you want this?
    – Michael H.
    Commented Oct 16, 2010 at 3:22
  • @khedron: it's useful for long-running unattended tasks e.g. download program, compiler, video encoding, some long computation, ... anything that doesn't require interaction but takes long enough time that your Mac would sleep otherwise.
    – Peter Štibraný
    Commented Oct 31, 2010 at 18:20
  • 2
    @joshdick: I use Jiggler for that.
    – Josh K
    Commented Nov 30, 2010 at 14:04
  • 1
    I up-voted the comment about InsomniaX but actually wanted to recommend InsomniaX 2.0 – Built for Lion from the same developer - makes it easy to run clamshell mode on Snow-Leopard with external display
    – iolsmit
    Commented Dec 22, 2011 at 0:52
83
votes

Transmit

FTP, SFTP, Amazon S3 and WebDav client.

2
  • Transmit 4 is awesome. I used Cyberduck for a long time, but I recently checked out Transmit 4 and was quite impressed.
    – mipadi
    Commented Aug 26, 2010 at 14:51
  • Transmit + Textmate are two apps I really can't do without. If Panic could ever get their act together and make Coda a serious contender for Textmate AND make the FTP as good as Transmit (why not, it's a Transmit app) then Coda would rule them all. But not today.
    – D. Simpson
    Commented Sep 7, 2011 at 1:32
82
votes

Skype

With skype, you can make

  • Voice and video calls to anyone else on Skype
  • Conference calls with three or more people
  • Instant messaging, file transfer and screen sharing
3
  • + Yahoo Messenger, AIM and iChat don't support Voice/Video chat with Windows clients. For me, the only choice for Video/Voice is Skype.
    – fardjad
    Commented Nov 29, 2010 at 21:28
  • 3
    Sadly, Beta 5 is as awful as a UI can get.
    – Martin Marconcini
    Commented Nov 30, 2010 at 14:44
  • 2
    The problem with skype now is that was bought from Microsoft. I don't think they will be keeping good. I'm waiting for some Google response offered in Brazil.
    – John John
    Commented Jun 26, 2011 at 17:05
82
votes

Cyberduck

for Upload, Download and Sync of FTP, SFTP, WebDav, iCloud, S3, ...

5
  • open-source and great
    – r00fus
    Commented Sep 15, 2010 at 4:13
  • honestly i got really frustrated with cyberduck due to little but important details (for example your bookmarks aren't sortable, no sidebyside view local/remote, ...) and switched to Transmit. Haven't looked back since ...
    – ChrisR
    Commented Sep 15, 2010 at 20:59
  • At first i loved it, but from time to time SFTP synchronization fails with "nothing to do" even when there are modified files.
    – LennyAskDifferent
    Commented Oct 15, 2010 at 10:52
  • CyberDuck even supports Amazon S3 (cloud storage).
    – Wadih M.
    Commented Dec 23, 2010 at 14:17
  • I'm frustated with CyberDuck, it delays to be updated when Goole Docs change some API.
    – John John
    Commented Jun 26, 2011 at 17:04
81
votes

MacPorts

The MacPorts Project is an 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. To that end we provide the command-line driven MacPorts software package under a BSD License, and through it easy access to thousands of ports that greatly simplify the task of compiling and installing open-source software on your Mac.

5
  • 2
    what about homebrew and fink?
    – Jason Sundram
    Commented Jan 16, 2011 at 6:55
  • 20
    I would recommend Homebrew over MacPorts by a long way. github.com/mxcl/homebrew
    – Dave Verwer
    Commented Feb 14, 2011 at 14:43
  • Giving this a down-vote because there's an answer about Homebrew and I want it bubbled up to the top. If others think the same, please up- and down-vote accordingly.
    – Bryson
    Commented Jun 3, 2011 at 17:08
  • Homebrew will kick macport's ass anyday
    – romeovs
    Commented Aug 15, 2011 at 20:41
  • I down-voted MacPorts and up-voted Homebrew. Homebrew is a lifesaver.
    – Nate Bird
    Commented Sep 8, 2011 at 2:08
81
votes

MacVim

A very good port of Vim. I used both Emacs and TextMate for quite some time, but finally became a Vim user. I think I'll have a look at TextMate 2, if it will actually be released some time…

2
  • 2
    I also recently discovered the GUI port of vim for the Mac, and I must say I really love editing C and C++ code in it. It also helps to better edit makefiles, since Xcode hasn't really got any support for makefiles. I only write Objective-C code in my Xcode editor, since Xcode has phenomenal text completion for Cocoa and the vim editor lacks this.
    – v1Axvw
    Commented Jan 30, 2011 at 18:07
  • I cannot believe that TextMate is above MacVim. Keep voting people. Hopefully this question does not get closed soon.
    – Deesbek
    Commented Oct 13, 2013 at 3:49
77
votes

Quicksilver

More then just an application launcher, Quicksilver is an intuitive, self learning, application launcher and system manipulator.

It can also assign global hotkeys to actions, store clipboard history, show the current iTunes song and much more.

20
  • what quicksilver does?
    – alexus
    Commented Aug 19, 2010 at 16:56
  • 11
    “I’m inclined to encourage users to move over to the more stable and well supported alternatives like LaunchBar” – Nicholas Jitkoff, Developer of Quicksilver
    – Carmine Paolino
    Commented Aug 28, 2010 at 16:42
  • 3
    I used Quicksilver for a long time, but I think Launchbar has the edge at this point.
    – Bryan Schuetz
    Commented Sep 19, 2010 at 14:35
  • 9
    Never understood why I should use an app to do what Spotlight already does. I understand people using Quicksilver from before Spotlight existed, but I don't see any reason to switch for new users. Is there one?
    – IlDan
    Commented Oct 14, 2010 at 23:55
  • 1
    Spotlight and Quicksilver are two different beasts. Quicksilver allows you to match entries in your catalog with a few keystrokes, and spotlight allows you to search your computer for words. If you type "sp" in Quicksilver you might get "System Preferences" if you use that a lot, or "Steve Porter" if you send him a lot of mails/IMs. Spotlight will just show you all things with "sp" in their name or contents
    – w00t
    Commented Sep 29, 2011 at 11:26
71
votes

iWork

Pages is both a streamlined word processor and an easy-to-use page layout tool. It allows you to be a writer one minute and a designer the next, always with a perfect document in the works.

 

With great-looking templates, easy-to-create formulas, and dynamic tables and charts, spreadsheets suddenly make perfect sense.

 

Create your presentation in Keynote, and you’ll be a hard act to follow. Powerful yet easy-to-use tools and dazzling effects put the show in slideshow.

I use iWork constantly. Both on my Mac and iPad. It's just great :D

10
  • 1
    At work I have use Word, however I write my text in Pages and then export to Word. Pages is a well crafted product.
    – neoneye
    Commented Aug 28, 2010 at 12:07
  • I love Pages to make beautiful cards! You can't beat the simple yet effective layouting that's possible with this software.
    – Marc
    Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 21:30
  • 1
    Personally I think Excel is more powerful than Numbers, or at least the power is not hidden.
    – Jonathan.
    Commented Nov 1, 2010 at 19:32
  • Excel is hugely more powerful (Pivot tables for a start), but it, and it's output, is nowhere near as pretty as Numbers.
    – JBRWilkinson
    Commented Jan 18, 2011 at 22:47
  • 1
    I really tried to use iWork, but I just can't. The support for more advanced features - like multiple Tables of Contents - just isn't there. It's a slick piece of software for more uses though.
    – Fomite
    Commented Sep 19, 2011 at 20:53
70
votes

VirtualBox

VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

3
  • 2
    VirtualBox is just plain awesome.
    – Robert S Ciaccio
    Commented Aug 20, 2010 at 3:18
  • 1
    could make your answer community wiki, please?
    – Loïc Wolff
    Commented Aug 20, 2010 at 12:05
  • Especially as it is the only solution to virtualize Mac OS X (although restricted to Mac hardware only).
    – raimue
    Commented Sep 6, 2010 at 0:05
67
votes

Evernote

Evernote is an app for note taking that features online syncing, much like Dropbox. Install Evernote on your desktop, laptop, iPhone and iPad and have access to all your notes, and if you've left all them all at home, access them on the web.

2
  • Evernote is amazing. +10
    – JFW
    Commented Nov 18, 2010 at 7:11
  • 1
    Evernote is now available on the Mac App Store. (Which, by the way, has resulted in a huge influx of new users.)
    – Jonik
    Commented Jan 12, 2011 at 10:51
66
votes

Safari

While I adore Chrome, but Chrome on Mac is not on the same level as Chrome on Windows yet.

4
  • 7
    It's getting there!
    – Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen
    Commented Jan 31, 2011 at 17:21
  • The Dev tools in Safari (some say the same) are just not there yet so I stick with Chrome for Dev. If Apple update Safari in the next release then we will see.
    – ChuckJHardy
    Commented Apr 17, 2011 at 14:14
  • Safari get stuck sometimes =[
    – John John
    Commented Jun 26, 2011 at 17:07
  • 1
    Safari integrates better with the whole OS X Lion experience
    – Sam Spencer
    Commented May 3, 2012 at 1:53
63
votes

Firefox

Firefox is an open-source web browser from Mozilla, based off Netscape.

With a few OS X specific tweaks it can be made to behave like a OS X browser should, including font rendering, Keychain Access and Retina display support.

10
  • 1
    @am1 could make your answer community wiki, please?
    – Loïc Wolff
    Commented Aug 20, 2010 at 12:14
  • 1
    @Loïc Wolff I make it.
    – Am1rr3zA
    Commented Aug 20, 2010 at 12:16
  • 2
    Firefox and Mac OS X just don't mix :( Safari also has add-ons :)
    – user235
    Commented Aug 25, 2010 at 12:46
  • 9
    Some things still put Firefox above competition: intelligent (learning) address bar autocomplete; huge selection of good add-ons (Safari or Chrome don't even come close). Too bad Firefox is slower than Chrome...
    – Jonik
    Commented Aug 28, 2010 at 9:41
  • 5
    Firefox is sssllllooowww.
    – Jonathan.
    Commented Nov 1, 2010 at 19:32
61
votes

OmniGraffle

The only diagramming application worth using.

7
  • 3
    I can't say enough good things about OmniGraffle.
    – Michael H.
    Commented Oct 16, 2010 at 3:22
  • @khedron: Disagreed. It's the easiest diagramming application that I use. I can use Illustrator to draw diagrams, but OmniGraffle decreases the amount of time I need to do this, and has minimal quality loss.
    – JFW
    Commented Nov 20, 2010 at 15:10
  • 3
    @JFW: I think there was a parsing problem somewhere -- I think OmniGraffle is fantastic. Maybe do a search on "can't say enough good things" to see how I was using this?
    – Michael H.
    Commented Nov 23, 2010 at 17:32
  • I tried using it for UML stuff and found it really lacking and difficult to use
    – willcodejavaforfood
    Commented Nov 30, 2010 at 13:12
  • @willcodejava: Can you explain more where you found it lacking?
    – Josh K
    Commented Nov 30, 2010 at 14:05
54
votes

VMware Fusion

Yet another virtual machine product. I have tried Parallels and am using VirtualBox on and off, but VMware's Fusion is what I find to be most efficient and feature-full. Unity view is quite efficient when you want to run something side-by-side, while full screen or windowed modes are good for when you need a focus or are just testing out something.

3
  • 3
    VMWare Fusion is great! I can share my VMs with VMWare Player for Windows and Fusion can even boot my Bootcamp installation as a VM.
    – Marc
    Commented Sep 14, 2010 at 21:34
  • 3
    Fusion's strength is definitely compatibility with it's bigger siblings (ie, Server-class). I can play around with an appliance, configure and demo it, then migrate the image straight to our server fabric if it fits our usage patterns. Amazing for small companies or departments.
    – r00fus
    Commented Sep 15, 2010 at 4:17
  • Fantastic app...
    – John John
    Commented Jun 26, 2011 at 17:06
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