“OS X may come with plenty of great apps and utilities to get you started, but there are a few incredibly helpful utilities that are either missing or could be improved,” OS X Daily writes. “That’s what we’re focusing on here, with four of the most helpful utilities for OS X that everyone should have on their Mac.”
OS X Daily writes, “Best of all? They’re all free!”
4 free OS X utilities that all Mac users should have:
1: Dropbox – Cloud File Storage & Sharing
2: The Unarchiver – Decompress Any Archive Format
3: AppCleaner – Advanced Application Uninstaller
4: ClipMenu – Clipboard History Manager
More info, links, and screenshots in the full article here.
My own list-
1. Onyx/Deeper
2. MenuMeters
3. Jumpcut
4. DeTune.
MenuMeters makes it 5 must haves apps.
snappy and Macs Fan Control are both currently free and highly recommended.
Another vote for Onyx, although I use Cocktail.
Default Folder X… super-charged Open/Save dialogue boxes
Growl
SuperDuper! for backups and cloning drives.
Evernote
For designers:
PopChar X… see EVERY available character in every installed font
ArtView… view Illustrator, inDesign, eps and other file types using QuickView in the Finder
Agreed on SuperDuper! The free version saved my ass when my iMac disk croaked. I just copied my clone over to the nice new Hitachi disk I bought, swapped in the new disk, and my iMac booted right up like nothing happened. I was so pleased I bought the full version and I still use it.
Copy.Com is 100 times better and faster than Dropox. Also you get more than twice the storage for half the cost.
Vote #3 for Onyx.
– Epic Web Browser: Strong privacy, faster than Tor.
– CheatSheet: Hold down CMD to see all keyboard shortcuts.
– Img2Icns: Replace ugly app icons with nicer ones.
– Sophos Anti-Virus: If you work with PC users and want to make sure that you aren’t a Typhoid Mary, passing along Win viruses unintentionally.
– Monolingual
– Onyx
Paid apps:
– 1Password
– App Zapper
– Carbon Copy Cloner
– Fantastical
As a programmer, CheatSheet is a must have.
Free?
Then Apptivate* is a great utility to have. Not the scope of Quickeys (still works but not supported current OS), but Apptivate is truly one to consider.
* http://www.apptivateapp.com
Best free utility? Time Machine. But only if you use it.
And let’s not forget Dictation & Speech. Double tap the fn key to dictate. I found the more I used it the greater the accuracy.
Dropbox isn’t a utility.
It’s a subscription-based syncing service like iCloud (many people would say much better than iCloud) that gets unsuspecting users hooked with a free sample, just like drug pushers. Although it claims that SSL transfers and AES-256 encryption will keep your data safe, it has the same issues as all 3rd party data management services: no real privacy guarantees. Why do you think it’s “free”? A “free” 2GB of server space is enough to share a few albums of tunes or a couple movie files, yippee. Here’s what they want in return:
Dropbox “automatically records information from your Device, its software, and your activity using the Services. This may include the Device’s Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type, the Web page visited before you came to our website, information you search for on our website, locale preferences, identification numbers associated with your Devices, your mobile carrier, date and time stamps associated with transactions, system configuration information, metadata concerning your Files, and other interactions with the Service.”
One wonders how much the NSA pays Dropbox for their info gathering.
Read copy.com’s ToS.
Same thing. as is all others..
Happy new year All:)
None of the apps mentioned in the article is not available in my MacBook App Store, why is that 😖😪
None… are not available??? Double negative much?
Since you’re worried about grammar, how about using the correct number?
None [e.g., the contraction of “not one”] _is_ available …
You don’t score any better than Snoop.
I like Caffeine.
Good one! I forgot about that little gem.
(and we’re not talking about coffee here people).
3rd caffeine.
Another one – Keyboard Cleaner. It turns off your keyboard for when you want to wipe those cheetos off of it.
Grand Perspective
http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net
Great article except they’re wrong about all 4. First of all Dropbox isn’t a utility. That’s already been nicely debunked. Unarchiver is unnecessary for 99% of Mac users. OS X services handle most of the popular formats already.
Appcleaner is a waste of time. Left over parts of apps almost never cause any problems
Clipmenu is OK but again most people use the clipboard as it’s meant to be – a temp source of copied text.
I don’t think there’s any necessary utilities. Plenty of good optional ones. They’re any number of articles on the Internet to help choose.
Free Memory
http://50CentFlash.com
I’m going to have Quicksilver and Alfred fans burning me at the digital stake but …
Chuck
It launches apps. Period.
What else? MenuBar, Jumpcut and Onyx.
AppCleaner not in App Store