Apple’s macOS is widely respected for offering great features, lots of customization, and a huge library of apps in the Mac App Store. Rarely will you hear someone say “My Mac seems a bit slow”. How come I have so little space left?” Whether you’ve recently bought a new Mac or are familiar with it, organizing things on a daily basis becomes challenging over time. Fortunately, the Mac App Store and developer community offer several macOS apps to optimize your Mac and tune it to its potential.
Every Mac owner consistently aims for stable performance. Spring cleaning can be used for this from time to time. Just dumping old/unused files, managing menu bar items, organizing files by archiving them together, etc. It would be wise to automate tasks such as How about letting some apps take over this automatically and make your life easier? That’s why we’ve compiled a number of useful macOS apps to optimize your Mac.
Most of the apps on this list offer a trial option, allowing you to experience them before deciding to buy.
Note: A few apps on this list require permissions like Full Disk Access and Accessibility permissions to work properly. So, make sure you allow them accordingly.
1. CleanMyMac X
We all have to pay the price of trying a few new apps. At the same time, everyone wants their Mac to be mobile and responsive. Not if you keep unloading apps. CleanMyMac X eliminates the need to roll up your sleeves to search for and get rid of unwanted files or apps to speed up your Mac. It identifies unused files, components left after the app is uninstalled, and other unused apps. By removing these junk files and apps, you can reclaim valuable storage space — it makes a world of difference on MacBooks with 128GB or 256GB of storage.
The CleanMyMac X trial version only lets you remove junk files up to 500MB, and there are a few special features hidden behind the paywall. The paid version is available from the Mac Store and MacPaw Store with an annual subscription or a one-time purchase. Beware – the Mac Store version is missing a few features which makes it a bit cheaper. If you want all the features, you’ll need to pay a few extra dollars and purchase the ‘no-hold’ version of CleanMyMac X directly from the MacPaw Store.
2. Bartender 3
The menu bar can look crowded with too many icons and apps sitting there. Bartender 3 can organize these menu bar items by cleverly putting them together, automatically hiding them and letting you access them with keyboard shortcuts or a small search box. If you don’t want to reveal the entire app list, you can use this little search bar to search and launch an app. You can also rearrange the app icon order in the menu bar list and browse quickly using your keyboard for one-click access.
The best part is that it works flawlessly with macOS Catalina’s dark mode. Bartender 3 comes with a free 4-week trial to let you experience a smart, minimalist menu bar. The full version will cost you $15 and is only available from the official site.
3. Alfred 4
Batman’s henchman, Alfred J. Pennyworth, is extremely effective at helping him during dangerous missions. Just like that, Alfred 4 will help you find and launch the apps or documents you’re looking for with minimal effort. You can even do web searches from Alfred’s search bar. Except for the voice commands part, it feels like a watered-down search box mixing Spotlight and Siri. But there is more.
You can add even more capabilities with a Powerpack that lets you connect directly to a few popular services like Spotify and 1Password. You can also use features like clipboard history, text auto-expand, themes, and more.
You can reduce repetitive manual tasks by setting up smart workflows for opening apps, searching the web, and expanding text or sentences. You can also run Terminal commands directly from the search bar instead of opening the Terminal application. This is pretty cool. While the app is free to download, Powerpack will cost GBP 25 for a single license or GBP 45 for a Free Lifetime Upgrade from the official site.
4. Keka
Dealing with archived or compressed files on a Mac can be tricky. But Keka does the job pretty smoothly. It is a nifty file archiver that can also extract various archive formats – yes, even IPA and APK files. It has one of the simplest interfaces with two areas in a small window – the upper part for compressing files and the lower part for extracting files. You will see this as soon as you drag and drop a few files into Keka’s application window.
The great thing about Keka is that you can directly extract the files without the app. For that, right-click on the archive file, choose Open With > Keka from the context menu, this should do the trick. There is support for compressing RAR files in the beta version. You can download it for free from the official site. Keka is also available for $2.99 on the Mac App Store to support the developer’s efforts.
5. Nuts 4
Let’s say you have CleanMyMac X to clean junk files and Alfred 4 to help you search for precise documents you want to revisit. What about photos and files scattered in different folders or even external volumes? With Hazel 4 you can intelligently organize these files and folders. First, you should create some basic rules and patterns for Hazel 4 to organize your photos, files, movies and important documents. Then the app automates the organization process every time you make a change.
Also, Hazel 4 can remove duplicate files you accidentally created and eliminate incomplete downloads – these two things can help you reclaim storage space. Other than that, you can configure it to organize files by name, date, or any other combination. You can also batch rename and archive files. Hazel 4 makes your life easier, but it will cost you $32 for it. You can buy it from the official site. The current build (Hazel 4) does not support dark mode on macOS Catalina.
6. Magnet
Resizing windows on macOS is so fun that you can spend hours trying to guess how to resize an application window. With Magnet, you can overcome this by turning your workspace into a multitasking station. It allows you to drag, align and snap windows of open applications. This means you can work or browse the web on one side of the screen and keep Netflix or YouTube running in the browser on the other. Just like the Snap feature in Split View in iPadOS and Task View in Windows 10.
Working on documents by stacking the two becomes very convenient with it. You can customize keyboard shortcuts to snap windows in a specific orientation (right or left, top left or bottom left, etc.). If you don’t remember the keyboard combinations, click on the Magnet icon in the Menu bar and choose the direction you want to capture the current active window.
Magnet is available in the Mac App Store for $1.99 and is best suited for those who connect their MacBook to a monitor or TV for a larger screen area.
7. coconutBattery 3
macOS 10.15.5 Catalina update will bring battery health management for Mac laptops. But how often will you check battery health, which may be buried deep in the settings? So coconut Battery 3 is a better alternative as it shows details about the battery like Charge Cycle counts, Temperature, Health and even its status in a single click on the menu bar.
These types of details are incredibly important to people who travel a lot, use their MacBooks with external displays, and often put these Macs to sleep to better understand their battery health. Coconut Battery 3 is free to use. However, if you want to print a detailed view of your iOS and Mac battery health and device health reports, you can purchase the Plus version from the official site.
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Apple’s MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models are fast but come with limited storage. And that can pinch sometimes. Therefore, it is necessary to organize and speed up disk space for maximum performance. Of course, you could spend hours trying to fix these things manually. But why do it when you can save time and automate applications to manage these tasks?
By working with the apps mentioned in this list, you can definitely disable these repetitive activities and optimize your Mac. What are your favorite macOS apps that others should try and use? Share your experience using them in the comments section below.
Next: Is Microsoft Word for Mac a better option for word processing than Apple Pages? Check out the next link to read our detailed comparison of a better word processing app for Mac.
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