My first ever computer that I used was a 2011 (or maybe 2012) MacBook Pro, back when MacBooks had ethernet ports. I was around 4 or 5 when my dad got it, and it was for the whole family, not just me. I still have that Mac, although it’s disassembled and the hard drive’s taken out. But I remember one app very vividly from my time using that Mac: Safari. Safari is what I consider my first ever Mac app, and I hate it now. I remember pinning an about:blank tab on Safari so the tab bar would stay fixed, and when I was homeschooled my mom and I spent a long time trying to install Chrome onto it so I could do my schoolwork on a supported browser. Since then, I’ve switched from Mac to Windows to Linux and then back to Mac (still using Linux for gaming), Hackintoshed my PC to run macOS Sonoma, and then eventually bought my own 2024 M3 MacBook Air. Over the last year, I’ve done plenty of research on how to optimize my Mac for schoolwork and personal projects. Here, I compiled a list of the top 10 Mac apps that I can’t live without. They aren’t in any particular order, but I did save the best for last.

Zed

Most people I assume don’t know about the default TextEdit app on Mac, as most people who use Macs don’t know how to use a computer. It’s a pretty simple plain text and rich text editor, but I didn’t really like how it worked, so I switched over to Zed. Zed is a plain text editor (and IDE for developers) built in the Rust programming language. It’s a great alternative to apps like VS Code especially because of its performance. I must admit I don’t know that much about IDE’s, but I watched an interesting Fireship video about Zed and that made me want to switch.

Setapp

A lot of Mac apps are expensive because, well, Macs are expensive. But you can have multiple paid apps on your Mac for only $10/month with an app called Setapp. It combines multiple paid apps into one subscription so that you don’t have to spend more money and give your credit card info to multiple people. There’s really not much to say about Setapp, it’s really just a better App Store.

CleanShot X

Fun fact: you can press Cmd+Shift+2 to take a screenshot on Mac. However, I found the default tool a bit limited, so I used Setapp to get CleanShot X. I bound the screenshot button to Cmd+Shift+S because of my muscle memory from Windows, and proceeded to unbind every other screenshot button on my Mac. Every screenshot in this post was taken with CleanShot X’s window capture feature. However, if you can’t afford a Setapp subscription, there’s a free app called Shottr that does most of what CleanShot X does.

Spark Mail

I love email. It’s a great way to send information over an open standard that the entire world uses. However, I dislike most email clients. They’re janky, cluttered, and not very keyboard friendly. That’s where Spark Mail comes in. It’s a keyboard-driven email client that integrates with almost any email sevice you can think of, and has IMAP and SMTP settings for other services. I have the Setapp version that comes with the AI features, but I would be just fine just using the free version if I didn’t have Setapp as I never use AI features. Plus, when you read or delete all your emails, you get congratulated by the app, which is a nice touch.

Pages

Even though I replaced a lot of default apps on my Mac, I can’t switch off of Apple Pages. It does everything I need it to do and it’s free. I like how simple it is to use compared to Microsoft Word, yet everything I learned from Word is applicable in Pages. I like how everything in Pages is local on your Mac, and not in some sort of cloud service.

Command X

In Windows and Linux, you can press Ctrl+X to cut a file in a file manager. However, in Mac, you can’t do that with Cmd+X. So, with the app fittingly named Command X, you can add that functionality to Finder. That’s it.

Clyde

I bring my MacBook to school every day, and sometimes leave it in a classroom when I go to the bathroom. Clyde gives me peace of mind when I do this, because I can leave my Mac on a table, lock it, and if someone closes the lid or moves it too much, an alarm goes off at max volume. It doesn’t have anything visually different from locking a Mac, just added security.

Numi

I’m not good at doing math in my head, and I don’t like writing on paper, so Numi helps with that. It’s a calculator app that acts like a live code editor. You can add comments, define variables, and probably a lot more that I haven’t discovered yet. I mainly use it for physics class, but I sometimes use it for algebra and even some geometry problems.

Al Dente

Fun fact: it’s not a good idea to have a battery constantly charged at 100% as it can degrade the battery health drastically over time. Batteries like to be around 50% to 70%, so Al Dente limits how high your Mac can charge when it’s plugged in. It has a Top Up mode where it lets your Mac charge to 100%, which I set to do at 1 AM every day so it’s fully charged for school, and I keep it at 70% during the day.

Raycast

Last but definitely not least, my Spotlight replacement of choice: Raycast. It’s a very fast and powerful search utility that can do everything from opening apps to creating new Obsidian notes from a template in less than a second. It also acts as my calculator for quick calculations in algebra class, and to fire confetti on my screen when I’m done with a project like this one. 10/10 app, every Mac should have it.