Best software utilities for your Mac

There's little doubt that macOS is a fully-featured platform that come with a lot of built-in features to help you get your work done. But by adding a few extras in the form of utilities you get an awful lot more from the platform with very little extra effort.

Here's my list of top utilities that I have installed on my Macs. Some are free, others are going to cost you a few bucks, but all of them are superb.

These utilities are all compatible with the latest macOS release, as well as many earlier releases. For exact system requirements check out the vendor's website.

After trying many different solutions, Parallels Access is my favorite method for accessing my systems remotely. With Parallels Access I can connect to my Mac (or PC) from pretty much any device, and work with the applications and files on that system as though I'm sitting at it.

This has been an absolute lifesaver for those times when I've left an important file on my computer at the home or office.

Price: $19.99 per year | More info

I know that there's a way to take screenshots in macOS using some keyboard voodoo that I can never remember, but I take a lot of screenshots every week - sometimes many hundreds - and SnagIt is a huge timesaver that streamlines the whole process.

It also makes taking complex screenshots - where perhaps you have to use a delay timer or have it scroll down a window - a snap.

This is one of those utilities I've been using for years, and it's never let me down.

Price: $49.95 | More info

If you take your Mac out and about, chances are that you connect to a myriad of different Wi-Fi connections at cafes, hotels, and workplaces.

But how do you know your connection is secure?

Don't leave it to chance, instead, install Freedome VPN and with just one click of a button you can enjoy private, untracked, anonymous browsing wherever you are. I've tried and tested a number of VPN solutions, and Freedome is, without a doubt, the best, most reliable, easiest to use on offer.

Price: $49.99 per year for 3 devices (free 14 day trial) | More info.

Without a doubt VLC is the best media player for the Mac (and for that matter, Windows too).

VLC with a myriad of different audio and video file formats, including DVD, audio CD, and VCD, with no codec downloads required. It can also do media conversion and streaming. It also supports many streaming protocols.

And best of all, it's free!

Price: Free | More info.

Apple is pretty good at keeping Macs running cool even when they are under heavy loads, but when I'm pushing my hardware hard I like to keep it a little cooler than the limits Apple's engineers have built into the system.

To do this I use TG Pro. This is a simple utility that sits in the menu bar that not only gives me a complete overview of system temperatures, but also allows me to set temperatures at which the system fans kick into high gear.

No other app shows more temperature sensors or has as many options for notifications and fan speeds.

Price: $18 | More info

I love this app because it allows me to geek-out of a massive amount of system information!

iStat Menus is an advanced Mac system monitor, covering an enormous range of stats ranging from system temperatures to CPU performance.

iStat Menus puts an awful lot of important and useful information right at your fingertips.

How detailed is it? Well, it can show you the battery levels of your Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad and Apple wireless keyboard. That's pretty detailed in my opinion.

Not only does iStat Menus display a lot of vital information, but it does so in a stylish manner that fits in well with the macOS look and feel.

Price: $15.59 | More info

I have a lot of apps installed, and that means I have a lot of icons cluttering up my menu bar. Bartender 3 allows me to take control of the menu bar back by letting me control how they are displayed.

Bartender 3 lets you organize your menu bar apps, by hiding them, rearranging them, or moving them to the Bartender Items. You can display the full menu bar, set options to have menu bar items show in the menu bar when they have updated, or have them visible in the Bartender Items whenever you want.

Price: $15 (one month free trial) | More info.

This updated suite of easy-to-use tools streamlines all routine computing chores that you do many times a day and turn them into actions you can carry out with a click or two, massively boosting their productivity.

Here are just some of the features it offers:

- Screenshot Page - Capture and print lengthy web pages that don't fit into your screen
- Free Memory - Reclaim RAM memory and optimize its consumption on your Mac
- Resize Images - Batch convert images to your desired file size and format

Price: $19.95 per user | More info

Amphetamine is a little app that lives in your menu bar.

Amphetamine allows you to quickly and easily override your energy saver settings and keep your Mac awake.

- Keep your Mac (and optionally its display and drives) awake
- Choose from numerous activation time presets, or enter your own
- Keep your Mac awake while specific apps are running
- Schedule activation/deactivation for specific times of the day
- Activate/deactivate with a single click in the menu bar
- Activate automatically at launch login
- Activate when connected to specific WiFi networks
- Keep drives (HDDs/SSDs) connected to your Mac awake
- Use global hotkeys for activation/deactivation
- Receive alerts while Amphetamine is running or when it activates/deactivates
- Auto-deactivate when your Mac's battery drops below a set threshold
- Auto-activate when you connect your Mac's power adapter
- Allow/prevent screen saver
- Use your own status icons
- Custom notification sounds
- AppleScript support

Price: Free | More Info

Here's one of those utilities for those days that just go from bad to worse.

With a single click, DiskWarrior reads the damaged directory and finds all salvageable files and folders and builds a new error-free, optimized directory for you to use. DiskWarrior works not by patching corrupted directories but by creating new ones, and it verifies that the replacement is error-free before saying the job is done.

If you're serious about your Mac and the data that's on it, this is the tool for you.

Price: $119.95 | More info.

Finder is good, but ForkLift 3 is better. It is the most advanced combination dual-pane file manager and FTP client for the Mac. It is packed with awesome features such as:

- Remote connections to SFTP, FTP, WebDAV, Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Google Drive, Rackspace CloudFiles, SMB, AFP, and NFS remote volumes
- Sync to compare local and remote folders
- Advanced file preview
- Quick open
- Multi rename
- Dark mode

Price: $29.95 | More info

While the tool built into macOS can do a reasonable job with some compressed file archives, The Unarchiver has you covered no matter what crazy file format you have to deal with.

It will open common formats such as Zip, RAR, 7-zip, Tar, Gzip and Bzip2, more obscure formats such as StuffIt, DiskDoubler, LZH, ARJ and ARC, and can extract files from ISO and BIN images.

It can also extract files from some Windows .EXE files.

Awesome tool that I use regularly!

Price: Free | More info.

If you juggle a lot of volumes on your Mac then Mountain is the tool for you. It allows you to fast and intuitively work with volumes from the menu bar, letting you eject and remount volumes without having to unplug cables or turn off devices.

It also supports automatically ejecting all external volumes when the system is going to sleep and remounting your favorite network drives when recovering from sleep.

One of the features I really like is being able to identify apps that are preventing volumes from being unmounted, and allowing me the option of either closing those apps or forcing unmounts.

This is an absolute must-have app.

Price: $5.99 | More info.