In today’s fast-paced world, we all strive to be more productive, efficient and organized. With the right tools, our Macs can help with that.
Whether you’re a student, a freelancer, or a business professional, there are countless productivity apps available for your Mac that can help you streamline your workflow, save time, and stay on top of your tasks.
That’s why I like Setapp. With one subscription, you get access to over 240 high-quality apps that take your Mac to the next level of awesomeness!
Here are my ten top picks for being more productive on a Mac.
1. Session
Session is an app that helps you focus and be more mindful by blocking distractions and tracking your progress. It is inspired by the Pomodoro technique, a popular productivity method that encourages you to break your work tasks into shorter, timed sessions.
To help you stay on task, the Mac version of Session will block apps and websites that might distract you while you are focused on a timed task. It can even update your Slacks status automatically when you start a timer.
Session tracks all your timed tasks, and will ask you to reflect on each one when you are done. Over time, you can use this data to see how productive you are when you are using the app.
Session is available for Mac and iOS. Normally, it costs $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year. However, with Setapp, it’s included in your subscription.
2. Craft Docs
Craft is an award-winning note-taking app, and in my opinion, it’s undoubtedly one of the best Setapp apps in the current catalog.
With Craft, you can take notes and create documents that are unlike anything you have seen before. Tables, toggles, markdown, back-linking, subpages, and content cards are just some of the features that await you with this innovative app.
If you want to share your content with the world, you can publish Craft documents online as a website. You can add text, images, links, videos and more. Best of all, you can do this with very little effort.
I really enjoy using Craft. Every time I open it, I am reminded of how intuitive and thoughtfully it has been designed. I honestly can’t wait to transfer all my notes here and use it full-time.
A Craft Pro account is $60 per year, so this one app alone makes your Setapp subscription well worth it.
3. Rocket Typist
If you ever get tired of typing the same things over and over again, then you need a text expander app like Rocket Typist.
A text expander lets you create a keyboard shortcut for a phrase or even a whole paragraph. This is great for customer support emails, the date and time, technical terms that are tough to spell, and alternative email signatures.
Anything that is tiresome to type can be saved as a snippet in Rocket Typist and quickly pasted into a document or email with just a few keystrokes. Snippets can either be plain or rich text and are synced to all your devices using iCloud.
Normally, Rocket Typist sells for $9.99. That’s actually a great deal for a text expander tool because they normally require an annual subscription. However, because this is a list of the best Setapp apps, you will be pleased to know that you can get Rocket Typist for free with Setapp.
4. Due
Task managers are great, but when a task becomes overdue, it’s easy to forget about it. Yes, it will turn red in the app, and you might see a badge notification, but it’s really down to you to remember to act upon it.
That’s where Due comes in. Due repeatedly notifies you of overdue tasks until you mark them complete, reschedule them, or turn off their auto-snooze. It’s relentless, and is designed to not let you forget.
Due is perfect for those repetitive chores that need to get done on a regular basis because it will badger you until you mark them as complete. It also comes with built-in timers that are equally persistent at reminding you about something you want to do in 30 minutes’ time.
Due is available for Mac and iOS. It is $14.99 on the Mac and $4.99 on iOS. A paid subscription is also available if you want future app updates, but it is included as part of your Setapp subscription.
5. Yoink
This is a really interesting app. It’s one of those apps that you don’t know how much you appreciate it until you start using it, and once you do, you never want to stop using it.
Yoink is a temporary shelf for your files. You can use it to store documents, folders, images, URLs, and text snippets until you need them. All you do is drag the file to the edge of your screen and drop it into Yoink. If you drag multiple files at once, it creates a stack of those files on the shelf.
You can use Yoink to move or copy multiple files to another location or to store things temporarily without digging through folders in Finder. It also helps keep your desktop clear of clutter so you can actually enjoy that desktop background you took so long to choose.
When dragging files out of Yoink, it works the same way Finder does. To force-copy a file, hold down the option key while dragging. To force-move, use the command key.
Yoink provides a lot of value for $8.99, and is a great way to power-up your productivity if you work with a lot of different files.
6. HazeOver
If you’re like me, you are probably drowning in windows most of the day. Yes, Apple has multiple ways to manage your windows, but the more you have open, the more you are distracted.
Enter, HazeOver. A simple app that automatically highlights the window you are working on, and dims the ones in the background. It is perfect for keeping you focussed on the task at hand.
Have you ever started typing and realized that the window you thought you were typing in was not the active window? We’ve all done it. HazeOver helps with that problem too.
If you use multiple monitors, this app will let you know which screen is focused or highlight a window on each monitor. It’s also customizable and lets you adjust the dimmer opacity.
HazeOver is a fantastic app for being more productive on a Mac, and I was delighted to see it included as part of my Setapp subscription.
7. Nitro PDF Pro
Preview is a fine Mac app. However, if you are looking for something with the capabilities of Adobe Acrobat DC, then this is about the next best thing.
With Nitro PDF Pro you can edit a PDF to correct typos, make changes, redact information, or add highlights and notes. You can use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to turn a scan into editable text and convert your PDF documents into other formats like Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
As you might expect, it is easy to add, remove or combine PDF pages, and you can quickly build fillable PDFs with the form tools.
Capabilities like this don’t come cheap. Nitro PDF Pro is $139.99 in the Mac App Store, but it’s one of those apps that makes your Setapp subscription seem great value for money.
8. BusyCal
BusyCal is another app that you already have an app for on your Mac. However, BusyCal has features that make the macOS Calendar app look a little pedestrian in comparison.
BusyCal works with all the popular cloud calendar providers. iCloud, Google, Exchange, Office 365, Yahoo, Fastmail, Kerio, Synology, Nextcloud, and ownCloud and are all supported. It also integrates seamlessly with Google Meet, Zoom, Webex, and GoTo Meeting.
It has a host of unique features, like the ability to work with Apple Reminders (and other task managers) to show tasks with due dates alongside the other events on your calendar.
BusyCal is also very customizable. You can choose the number of weeks shown in the Month view and the number of days shown in Week view. You can even customize the calendar’s appearance by picking a font, font size, calendar colors, time format, and more.
The Info Panel is a useful sidebar that lets you quickly view event details without leaving your current view. You can choose to show what fields appear here, and add notes or tags to events for each searching.
The list of features goes on and on, so this is one you should absolutely try for yourself. It’s $49.99 to purchase, or free with a Setapp subscription.
9. Ulysses
Ulysses is an app for writers. Whether you are writing your first book, or publishing a blog post on Medium or WordPress, Ulysses has you covered. In my opinion, this is easily one of the best Setapp apps you can get.
It has a built-in proofreader and editing assistant that uses my current grammar checker of choice, LanguageTool. It works with over 20 languages, and offers suggestions for capitalization, punctuation, semantics, redundancy, style, and more.
Ulysses can turn your texts into PDFs, Word documents, e-books, and even blog posts. If you connect it to your online accounts, you can publish drafts straight to Medium, WordPress, Ghost, and micro.blog.
If you are working towards a word count, Ulysses will help you track your progress as you write. It supports Markup, and has built-in organization for all your writing projects.
Ulysses also has a clean, minimal typing experience that is designed to let you focus on putting words on a page. It’s available for Mac and iOS, and although it’s normally sold for a $39.99 per year subscription, Setapp has included it in their app catalog for all their subscribers.
10. Paste
My final pick for this list is Paste. It’s an app that does something Apple has yet to fully integrate into macOS. It’s a clipboard manager.
If you’ve never used a clipboard manager before, you are missing out. It’s a must-have productivity tool because of the sheer number of things we copy and paste on a daily basis.
Paste elevates traditional clipboard managers by allowing you to sort and tag whatever you copy. Text, screenshots, links, and images are all stored in Paste. It also has a handy search tool to let you find what you need.
If you write a lot of emails, you can save canned responses in Paste. If you write code, Paste can save the code snippets you use most often. And there is no limit to the number of items you can save. Everything you copy is always available to you, regardless of when you captured it.
Paste is available as a Mac and an iOS app. Thanks to iCloud, whatever you save on your Mac is also available on your iPhone. Paste is available for just $14.99 a year, and is also in the Setapp app catalog.
