My Mac Apps 2025

I’m getting a new MacBook Air soon (likely a 15″ model in Sky Blue) and I think I’m gonna go for a clean install. I use iCloud for Documents, almost entirely use default Mac Apps these days anyway, so I’m intrigued to see what I’d ‘bring with me’ in terms of apps.

The list below is one I’ve maintained and updated over the past few years, it’s slowly whittling down (Sherlocking to the fore) to only a few and mostly (I think) because I’m just too used to having these apps supporting my usage, or as part of my … ugh… workflow.

So, a fresh install of MacOS26 and here are the apps I think I’ll reach for … but first, probably worth pointing out some of the apps I’m aiming to drop.

The biggest one (usage wise) will be to replace Day One with Apple Journal. My biggest gripe when Apple launched Journal last year was that it wasn’t available on my Mac (where I do most of my writing), and that it didn’t have multiple journals. Well, both of those have been ‘fixed’ and with the aid of Shortcuts I can automate logging some parts of my life (workouts, weight-ins, mood updates), as well as the more wordy entries. I’ve found the prompts on the iOS app useful too so it bodes well. Day One is a great tool but no longer offers me anything else I really need or rely on.

It’s also bye bye to Raycast. I’m sure the power users will keep it but I only ever really used it for launching Apps and finding documents (and occasionally as a quick calculator/converter), all of which I will now be able to do in Spotlight.

So, as far as my new MacBook goes, I will install three Apps straight away, and then likely Ice, StandApp, Wallpaperer and… then we will see how I go.

It’s a big change from how things were in 2015, 2020,  or 2024 that’s for sure.

Apps

• Tot – £20 (on iPhone or Watch, free on Mac) a wonderful utility for temporary text capture/edit. “Tot is an elegant, simple way to collect & edit text across your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. It’s your tiny text companion!”
• Simplenote – used to easily get chunks of text from my work PC (via Simplenote web to the Simplenote App on my MacBook/iPhone)
• Pixelmator Pro – £50 – because sometimes you need a little more power than the standard image editor gives you. Has just been bought by Apple so I’m intrigued as to what will happen to this app next!

Utilities

• AppCleaner – FREE – for when I want to remove some of these apps, it’ll find all the related files and get rid of them too.
• Contexts – $10 – For those who also use Windows, this provides a smarter CMD+Tab app switcher, which includes sub windows too. So, if I have 3 draft emails, I can bring either one to the front.
• Ice – FREE – menu bar tidier (less visual clutter) 
• MacMouseFix – FREE – finer control over scroll direction between trackpad and mouse
• Today – FREE – a simple menubar icon that shows list of events for the current day, but if that isn’t enough, try..
• Dato – £9 – more extensive but same idea as Today (same developer too)
• Pure Paste – FREE – automatically paste as plain text by default 
• StandApp – hourly reminders to stand (because I don’t always register the notification from my Watch)
• Wallpaperer – FREE – A lovely little app that grabs an image each day from a given Reddit. 
• Caffeine – FREE – one click to stop your Mac going to sleep until you say so, handy for viewing movies, keeping Teams showing as online 😜 etc.
• Supercharge – £15 – adds in even more little useful things, cut and paste files, automatically open app windows if minimised and much more.

I also have a list that includes a few potential useful apps as I’ll now have a MacBook with that little notch on the screen, but will wait to see if I even need to bother with those.

So, do you have a Mac? What apps are must haves for you?