Apple finally killed the Dashboard feature in macOS Catalina after keeping it alive for a long time. Over the years, Dashboard has become a skeleton of its original self, although some Mac users still use the feature on a daily basis. While we cannot enable Clipboard in macOS Catalina, there are several third-party apps you can use to get the same features. In this post, we’ll show you the best macOS Dashboard alternatives you can use to fill the void Apple created by killing it.
Enable Clipboard Features in macOS Catalina
I spent days trying to find a way to enable Clipboard features in macOS Catalina. But unfortunately, it cannot be done. There are no hidden features or settings or hacks that will allow you to do this. Fortunately, there are third-party apps you can use to enable most of the Clipboard Features in Catalina. You can click on the table of contents below to check the list of applications mentioned in this list. Having said that, shall we move on to our list?
1. Widgets
The closest replacement for macOS Dashboard I could find is the Widgets app. There are a few things I like about this app. First of all, it has the largest collection of widgets among all the apps I’ve tested. With this app, widgets for a music player, calendar, calculator, clock, contacts, counter, dictionary and weather among others.
Thus, it replaces almost any widget you lost with Mac Dashboard’s ax. One of my favorite Dashboard widgets was the unit converter widget and luckily the Widgets app brings this widget too.
Another thing that struck me was the inclusion of multiple themes. Thus, you can see widgets not only in traditional black and white themes, but also in other colors.
The Widgets app gives you a modern Dashboard, and that’s probably the biggest compliment I can give this app. The only downside I could find was that the app crashed on me a few times. Also, it’s only available on the US Mac App Store. If you’re missing Dashboard on macOS Catalina, give it a try.
Download from the App Store: $4.99
2. Use Today View
While Apple killed off the Dashboard with macOS Catalina, it replaced it with a kind of alternative by launching the Today View area (access by swiping left to right from the right edge of the Mac trackpad). Today View is the same as its iOS counterpart; that means you can place widgets there. The benefits of the Today View field are: Besides showing you stock widgets, it also gives you the option to showcase third-party widgets.
And this feature will be even more important on the upcoming macOS Big Sure and ARM Macs, as they will be able to run iPhone and iPad apps natively. And since the introduction of third-party custom widgets in iOS 14, you will get all these widgets on your Mac. But this is in the future and we are not there yet.
Talking about current scenario, you get stock widgets for calendar, reminders, world clock, calculator, now playing, weather and stocks. Besides the stock widgets, there are also third-party apps like Things 3 and OmniFocus that bring their widgets.
If you’re looking for specific widgets, you can also search for widgets in the Mac App Store. For example, here is a unit converter widget and world clock widget i downloaded. So, if you don’t want to try third-party apps, you might want to investigate. It will only get stronger in the future.
3. Infinity Dashboard
Infinity Dashboard on a perfect macOS Clipboard replacement for people who want to access browsable information. It lets you watch anything you want in a clean and concise information dashboard. Over 35 built-ins to track and monitor things ranging from current weather, travel times, website stats, stock quotes and birthdays to currency rates, social records (Twitter followers, YouTube subscribers, etc.), product prices on Amazon It has module. and more.
Not only that, Infinity Dashboard also supports user-created modules, allowing you to: monitor things like cryptocurrency pricing, percentage experienced and percentage of workdays, among other things. You can also create your modules using Javascript. Data is automatically refreshed at a defined frequency making it a live dashboard. Finally, there’s a native Mac app as well as the ability to share a web app version of your clipboard.
Download: free trial$9.99
4. iWall-Dynamic Desktop Engine
iWall is less like Mac Dashboard and more like Rainmeter skins for Windows. For the unfamiliar, Rainmeter lets you: Create a dynamic desktop background using different themes, wallpapers and widgets. You can create amazing things using Rainmeter on Windows (click on the linked article above to check them out). While iWall isn’t that powerful, it’s good enough to replace Dashboard.
Beware, it won’t bring up all the widgets we’ve lost, but something is better than nothing. With iWall, you can set dynamic backgrounds that change colors according to time, show a visual representation of the audio playback, set a video as the background, show the time and calendar, and more. The main difference between iWall and macOS Desktop is that the former focuses more on aesthetics while the latter is more functional. Take a look and see for yourself whether you like it or not.
Download from the Mac App Store: $2.99
5. Enterprise
Dashful is a nice replacement for a web dashboard if you can live with it. The app doesn’t offer any native Mac apps, so you’ll have to access it using a browser. That flaw aside, it’s a very powerful instrument cluster replacement. There is a caveat though. The widgets here are not intended to be interactive like the macOS Dashboard. They are more like information widgets.
So you can use it to get information at a glance. You can do add widget for weather, social media (see a live Twitter follower or Twitch and YouTube subscriber count), yearly progress, countdown timer, pictures and more. You can also add custom widgets using <iframe> and private APIs. Again, this isn’t strictly a macOS Dashboard alternative, but it’s a great control panel.
Visit Dashful: Free$10/month
Use These Mac Dashboard Replacements to Get All Widgets
Mac Dashboard was not a popular feature used by only a small percentage of Mac users. But that doesn’t deny the fact that it’s a good feature and people who use it like it.
So, if you are upset about Dashboard being killed in macOS Catalina, check out these alternatives. If you found a good alternative that we couldn’t, share it with us in the comments below so the whole community can benefit from it.
