Apple developers make some useful tools for OS X that extend the usefulness of Yosemite, the latest version of Apple’s OS. We’re listing 18 essential Mac apps for Yosemite, including utilities, video apps, photo apps and productivity apps. Try them out and we’re sure you’ll want to download and install these awesome Mac apps for Yosemite to get things done faster, easier or cheaper than you would otherwise using built-in tools or well-known programs.
- Best Email App Yosemite Valley
- Best Email App Yosemite National Park
- Best Email App Yosemite College
- Best Email App Yosemite State
TextExpander
TextExpander beefs up keyboard shortcuts in OS X Yosemite.
OS X includes some simple keystroke shortcuts that let uses enter text quickly, but TextExpander ($34.95) gives us that feature and much more.
A free email client, Apple Mail, comes installed and ready for use with macOS. If you're interested in what the Mail app can do compared to other alternatives, here are the best free email clients available for macOS. The best calendar app on the Mac is Fantastical ($9.99). Like other Mac apps for Yosemite, it runs in the background and a menu bar icon shows the calendar when the user clicks on it (see above). To add an appointment type into the box in the top of the drop down box. Use natural language to enter appointments.
Markup is a new feature in the OS X Yosemite Mail app that lets you easily annotate and edit images inline. While you'll still want advanced graphics program for heavy editing, Markup makes it extremely easy to get your point across without having to launch Photoshop, Acorn, or something similar. Yosemite just might be the iconic US National Park. A land of giants, massive granite cliffs and domes providing the setting for dramatic waterfalls to tumble thousands of feet over. Your journey starts as you approach the Park entrances with an overview of the geological features you’ll be viewing and how time and the elements have shaped.
Create a snippet of text to type. For example, use adr and tell TextExpander to automatically turn adr into a home address. It saves time with powerful shortcuts. Check out the video below that shows some of the really powerful ways users can harness TextExpander making it one of the best Mac apps for Yosemite.
Adapter
Adapter (Free) impressed us as one of the best file conversion utilities. It’s a drag-and-drop utility that converts audio, video and image files from one format to another. For example, drag a PNG file to the open app window and it will convert it to JPG or some other format. Use the drop down box at the bottom of the window to choose the resulting file format.
BitTorrent Sync
Most people think that people only use BitTorrent (Free) to share pirated movies or music, but it’s actually a great tool for transferring any content. BitTorrent Sync will make it easy to get the power of BitTorrent on your side. The app makes sharing large files, like a big video file edited by a group of people or a really large zip file of photos, easy. Criminals can use it, but honest people shouldn’t fear BitTorrent.
Why use BitTorrent Sync instead of Dropbox? There’s no central server that stores the files. People will rest assured they don’t need to worry about hackers going after Dropbox or one of the other cloud services. It’s potentially safer and more anonymous.
FilePane
The FilePane pop up lets users work with their files by dragging them onto the pop up.
Best Email App Yosemite Valley
FilePane ($6.99) makes it easy to handle files through a drag-and-drop interface. This makes it one of our awesome Mac apps for Yosemite because it starts up with OS X and runs in the background waiting for the user to select and then drag a file. The FilePane window pops up with icons that represent various things the utility can do with those files. Drag it on the Finder icon to move the file or the trashcan icon to delete it.
Forklift
Finder does what many of us need it to do, letting us find and manage files. However, it could do so much more so. Forklift ($19.99) jumps in where Finder stops, adding better file management to a Mac.
Here are a few ways it improves file management compared to OS X Finder:
- Dual pane file manager window
- FTP for transferring files to a server
- Saved workspaces for repeated tasks
- Folder sync
- Delete apps and clean up files that stay behind when a person drags an app from Applications to the trash
- Tabbed interface like Finder
Outline
Microsoft makes OneNote for Mac, but it doesn’t look like other native Mac apps for Yosemite. So some Apple purists would rather not use it, but they share notebooks with Office users. Outline ($6.99) offers a great note taking tool that syncs between computer and iPad and opens and saves OneNote notebooks. It also syncs with OneDrive. Use the Outline notebook format syncs and sync with Dropbox or Box. Use OneDrive when syncing OneNote notebooks.
TeamViewer
Lots of apps and services give users remote management features, including Apple’s built-in Back to My Mac solution, but TeamViewer (Free for personal use) does it better and lets users work cross-platform.
Let’s say someone wants to upload a file from their home computer running Windows to their Dropbox account so they can access it on their Mac while on vacation. The person forgot to save the file in their Dropbox folder. Log into the home computer via TeamViewer and copy the file over. To do this the person will need to install software on both computers. There’s also a version for iPhone, iPad, and Android.
Window Magnet
Window Magnet brings Windows style window snapping to OS X.
Windows snaps program windows by dragging the window to the sides, top or bottom of the screen. To get this feature on a Mac use one of our favorite Mac apps for Yosemite, Window Magnet ($4.99). The app brings to Mac the cool Windows feature.
Drag the title bar of an app to the top of the screen and it fills the entire screen. Drag it to the right or left and it snaps into place on that half of the screen. Use keyboard shortcuts to move windows to each area of the screen plus the four quadrants of the screen.
DaisyDisk
See what’s cluttering up a Mac hard drive using DaisyDisk.
When a Mac hard drive starts to get full it can slow down the computer and keep users from installing apps or downloading files. There’s no easy way to find out what’s hogging the hard drive space in OS X. Use DaisyDisk ($9.99) to scan the drive and show the contents visually.
When a user finds a folder of content to move or delete, they can drag them to the icon in the lower left corner to “collect” them. Then right-click the icon to get rid of them.
Click on colored pie piece and it will expand and fill the screen with a new pie showing the file and folder sizes. Click in the center again to go back to the containing folder. See the video below for a demo of how it works.
Fantastical
The best calendar app on the Mac is Fantastical ($9.99). Like other Mac apps for Yosemite, it runs in the background and a menu bar icon shows the calendar when the user clicks on it (see above). To add an appointment type into the box in the top of the drop down box. Use natural language to enter appointments. For example, type “Meet with Donna at 2 pm next Thursday at Chipotle.” This will start to add the pertinent details to the appointment. The drop down also shows upcoming appointments, a month view and reminders from the Reminders app in OS X.
iA Writer
iA Writer ($9.99 or $19.99 for iA Writer Pro) offers a distraction free writing environment and adds markdown formatting. That means that writers can quickly add things like bold, italics and more without taking their hands off the keyboard. A # creates a heading, an * adds italics to text, and ** adds bold formatting. People who don’t like markdown can add formatting using the program’s menu.
Put the app into full-screen distraction-free to get rid of all visual distractions, like menus, the OS X Dock or anything else. The user only sees the text and the background. In the iA Writer Pro version users can also write in a dark background and white text.
Put iA Writer in full-screen mode using the green dot in the upper left corner.
The developers created an iPad version that syncs via iCloud. There’s also an Android version in beta testing. It only syncs using iCloud.
Notability
Notability ($6.99) now runs on OS X, bringing the great iPad app to the computer. Use it to type notes in class, a meeting or any other time. Users can sync notes between Mac and iPad over iCloud. They can edit them or create on a computer and sync them back to the iPad.
Here’s a list of the key features of Notability, besides typing and writing text on the page. See the image above. The numbers below correspond with the numbered areas of the app in the screenshot above.
- Toolbar – insert text, select fonts, and pick a pen, eraser or highlighter.
- Notebooks – the notebooks one creates to organize their notes
- Note Previews – small thumbnails of the notes in the selected notebook
- Pen Tool – select colors, pen sizes and styles
Notability also includes the ability to insert pictures and audio notes recorded within the program.
NoteBurner M4V Converter Plus
If people want to strip DRM from their iTunes movies, NoteBurner M4V Converter Plus ($44.95) will do the job quickly and easily. The program grabs videos from iTunes removes the DRM so the user can watch the videos on non-Apple devices, or in programs like VLC Media Player (see below), also featured in this round-up of Mac apps for Yosemite.
Pixelmator
People who want Photoshop quality photo editing on a Microsoft Paint budget should look at Pixelmator ($29.99). It offers layer-based editing plus all the basic photo editing tools most of us will ever need. It handles text and layout for creating posters or fliers. Filters quickly add interesting looks to images.
The program interfaces with other apps using OS X Yosemite’s sharing feature. The Yosemite and iOS Handoff feature lets a user open a photo in the OS X version and then it will automatically open on the iOS version on an iPad.
VLC Media Player
VLC Media Play works better than QuickTime because it doesn’t come with any of the restriction. It plays any file format you throw at it. It also will capture from the Mac’s FaceTime camera. With some help from third-party codecs it can handle DVD playback as well. The program offers to install the third-party codecs when running the program’s installer.
Reflector
Reflector turns any OS X computer into an AirPlay receiver.
The iPad or iPhone can share the screen to any Apple TV using Apple’s AirPlay technology. Reflector ($12.99 for 1 computer) turns a Mac or PC into an AirPlay receiver.
Why would someone want to share their iPad or iPhone screen on a Mac? Maybe a user wants to demo an app in a tutorial video or for a class using a computer hooked up to a projector or TV. Reflector makes that happen as quickly as hooking up to an Apple TV. The app also lets a user take screenshots. They don’t need to transfer the screen shot from the iPad to the computer since it’s already on the computer.
Handbrake
NoteBurner strips DRM from iTunes movies. Handbrake (Free) does the same for DVDs. Load up a DVD into a USB drive on your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air and the program will read the DVD, let the user open it and convert it to multiple formats or sizes for viewing on an iPad, an Android phone or on a computer, to name a few formats it handles.
Ejector
Use Ejector to quickly eject one or all removable disks in Yosemite.
People who connect a MacBook to a docking station or Apple Thunderbolt Display with one or more external disks connected via USB, Firewire or Thunderbolt, can use a tiny app like Ejector (Free) to quickly remove the drives with two clicks (the icon bar and the menu item) or one keystroke (COMMAND+OPTION+CONTROL+SHIFT+E). This keeps the user from ejecting a USB drive without doing it the OS X way. Unplugging a drive before telling the OS to reject the drive can result in corrupted files, since OS X may be writing a file to the disk at the moment the user pulled out the drive before ejecting it in OS X.
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The search for best email apps for mac os is a never ending one and we cannot say that one email client serves the purpose of different types of users. Whenever we talk about Productivity Apps for Mac, Email Client stands first in the line and we need choices to see which one meets our requirement. Couple of years ago we wrote Best Email Apps for Mac OS X Mountain Lion that includes both premium and free mail apps for mac.
We also have the list of paid, premium email client apps for mac that you may want to check and purchase. Most of the Macbooks and iMac’s now running OS X Yosemite, so its time to bring the updated list of email apps for mac for the year 2015.
Also, if you have recently bought a new Mac, then do check Essential Mac Apps for New Macbook, iMac list. Its not just about reading and replying an email anymore. We do business through emails and it is the ultimate point of contact for most of the people in Corporates, Organizations, Small and Medium Companies, Freelancers and so on.
You may have to use and find which email suits for your needs and very well compatible with the devices you own. There are very less number of mail apps available for mac, and you easily select the one for you by giving it a try on your Mac, iPhone and Windows Computers if you have any at office or home.
Best Free Mail Apps for Mac
Best Email App Yosemite National Park
Without further delay, here we have the list of mail apps for mac os x that are tested and compatible with latest OS X Yosemite. The apps listed here require minimum OS X 10.7 and above to run.
Sparrow mail app was very popular when it released couple of years ago. Unfortunately Google acquired Sparrow and killed the popular mac mail app. Sparrow is still used by many users because of its clutter free mail reading experience and works well on iPhone as well. It was a premium app when it was released and no updates since then, so it is not recommended to buy that app for $9.99 now.
We have advanced mail apps with tons of essential features added that receives regular updates from its developers. Lets explore the list of such beautiful free email apps for mac os.
Mailbox App
Pretty popular mail app for iPhone mainly for its “Reminder” feature. Simply “Swipe” to perform several actions to organize and manage your multiple email accounts. The unified mailbox app experience stays with mac version too. If you are using Mailbox App on iPhone then you will get the same feel once you installed it on your mac. As it uses dropbox authentication, you will be logged in automatically once you supplied the dropbox details after installing mailbox on mac.
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Just one drawback i felt while using mailbox app on mac is its pure white and the gray font color makes it hard to look at for long time. So i did sent a feedback as its in beta stage, the developer team responded to consider it in upcoming updates. Rest, its just a beautiful mail app for mac without any doubt. They recently made it as public beta, so anyone can download mailbox app.
Best Email App Yosemite State
Availability: Mac OS X, iPhone and Android
DownloadMailbox App for Mac
Inky Mail App
This mail app has a beautiful clutter free design with sharp and beautiful fonts across the application. The blue and white combination is an excellent choice and i felt google+ application kind of feel while using this app. Filtered Inbox separates newsletters, social notifications from personal messages that highlights the importance to respond quickly. All newsletters quarantined into Subscriptions so that you can read them when you have time. Daily Deals separates the offers, promotional mails, coupon codes and discount related emails to another view.
Notes let you type messages quickly and maintain a local draft copy inside Inky Application. Package Tracking and Maps are another two cool feature additions that completes Inky mail app as a rock star in the productivity apps arena. You can use all your Gmail accounts, Yahoo mail accounts, IMAP or POP accounts and more to sync and access in all you devices.
Availability: Mac OS X, Windows, iPhone and iPad
Download: Inky for Mac
Mailplane App
If you use mostly Gmail for your Personal and Business requirements then Mailplane Email Client App for Mac is just for you. Mailplane brings the gmail experience without loosing the design and quality of Gmail web interface. It just creates multiple tabs for each accounts, so you can switch, browse, view and edit calendars, notes, manage all your accounts settings without logging out. Its just like a dedicated browser for emails on mac computer. Mailplane comparison with Google Chrome browser shows how efficient and brilliant this application can be in terms of features.
Notifications, Keyboard Shortcuts, Attachment management, Connecting with Mac Apps like Evernote, Pages, Keynote, PDFPen, iPhoto makes this app more powerful and productivity beast when you use it in your mac.
Availability: Mac OS X
Download: Mailplane for Mac
Thunderbird for Mac
If you have used Ubuntu or any Linux flavors, then this name must be familiar to you. It is a pretty popular Email Client for Linux and being an open source email client, it just gets better every day and pretty stable for Linux platforms. Thunderbird App is also available for Mac OS X users, to bring the same design and features to be your favorite mac email client. Latest update brings several new feature additions such as Tabbed Email Browsing, One-Click Address Book, Attachment Reminder, Multiple-Channel Chat, Web Search feature, Effective Filter Toolbox, Advanced Email Search Tools, and a lot more.
Thunderbird Email Client also supports add-ons and mozilla has built a separate addon directory that are compatible for thunderbird and you can access it from its official website.
Availability: Windows, Linux and Mac OS X
Download: Thunderbird for Mac
I hope you have found your alternative to mac mail app from this list today.
Did we miss anything? Feel free to include it in the comment section below. Thanks for reading and dont forget to share a word about this post with your friends and followers across Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Have a wonderful productive day.
