Best Freeware for macOS
A work in progress…
Development
Visual Studio Code is a free and extensible code editor for building web, desktop, and mobile applications, using any programming language and framework.
Visual Studio Code has built-in support for Git source control management and powerful integrations with GitHub, an integrated debugger, and smart code completion with IntelliSense and with AI-driven IntelliCode. With over 30,000 extensions and themes in the Visual Studio Code Marketplace, you can customize the features and the look of Visual Studio Code to fit your needs, preferences, and style.
You can use Visual Studio Code to build any kind of app, for web, desktop, and mobile. Visual Studio Code supports JavaScript and TypeScript natively and offers extensions for coding in languages such as Python, Java, C/C++, C#, Go, Rust, PHP, and many more.
Known as VS-Code amongst the community, it is one of the most popular code editors and has a browser version which can be immediately accessed by going to vscode.dev.
A free web browser developed by Google from the open source Chromium project with a focus on speed and minimalism. Chrome offers fast start-up and web page loading, supports a minimalist user interface, automatically updates in the background, and offers syncing of browser bookmarks, extensions, passwords, and history between multiple computers by your Google account.
Additionally, Chrome has PDF support built into the browser for better speed and security.
Chrome Web Apps and Extensions are available on Chrome Web Store .
Available in more than 50 languages.
Gas Mask is simple hosts file manager for Mac OS X. It allows editing of host files and switching between them.
Multimedia
Stay up to date with all the latest podcasts (or netcasts if you're Leo) with one easy to use app. Simply add your favourite podcasts, and you'll be able to stream or download new episodes as they become available.
Play without subscribing Committing to things is so 2015. Browse podcasts and hit play on episodes that look interesting, no strings attached.
Episode search Trying to find your favorite guest on that one amazing episode? Looking for your pet topic but confronted with hundreds of shows to sift through? Episode search to the rescue!
Up Next syncing Have you built the perfect list of shows to play on your phone? Wouldn't it be nice if they were all there, ready to go, on your PC at work? How about the tablet sitting on your coffee table? Pocket Casts 7 has you covered.
Improved discovery With so many new podcasts launching daily, how do you find your next obsession? We've invested heavily in curation to make discovery easy. Our best algorithms teamed up with our best people to bring you the best podcasts.
Streamlined experience Everything is easier in Pocket Casts 7. We've spent months fine-tuning the app so that it gets out of the way and lets you seamlessly enjoy your favorite podcasts.
So much more… New archiving features. Playback effects while streaming. Enhanced Apple Watch support. Siri Shortcuts. Listening history. Syncing improvements. Season and episode numbering support. Almost everything that could be improved has been to take Pocket Casts 7 to the next level.
VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
Features
Simple, fast and powerful media player. Plays everything: Files, Discs, Webcams, Devices and Streams.
Plays most codecs with no codec packs needed: MPEG-2, DivX, H.264, MKV, WebM, WMV, MP3...
HandBrake is an open-source, multithreaded video transcoder – it compresses and converts digital media from one format to another. HandBrake can rip encrypted DVDs with libdvdcss (libdvdcss is installed with VLC media player on macOS, or AnyDVD/DVD 43 on Windows).
Supports • Any Blu-ray or DVD-like source: VIDEO_TS folder, DVD image or real DVD, and some .VOB, .m2ts, and .TS files. Without VLC, HandBrake requires media to be unencrypted or already decrypted by third-party programs (i.e. DVD rippers). • Almost any other multimedia file it can get libavformat to read and libavcodec to decode.
Outputs • File format: MP4 and MKV • Video: MPEG-4, H.264, or Theora • Audio: AAC, CoreAudio AAC (macOS Only), MP3, or Vorbis. AC-3 pass-through, DTS pass-through (MKV only)
Other features • Support of chapter selections • Support of subtitles • Integrated bitrate calculator • Picture deinterlacing, cropping and scaling • Live Video Preview
System Utilities
The Unarchiver is a small and easy to use program that can unarchive many different kinds of archive files. It will open common formats such as Zip, RAR (including v5), 7-zip, Tar, Gzip and Bzip2. It will also open many older formats, such as StuffIt, DiskDoubler, LZH, ARJ and ARC. It will even open other kinds of files, like ISO and BIN disc images, some Windows .EXE installers. The list is actually much longer - see the program homepage for the full list.
The Unarchiver also tries to detect and correctly handle the filename encoding in the archives it opens, allowing you to open files from every part of the world without getting garbled filenames.
Flycut is a clean and simple clipboard manager for developers. It based on open source app called Jumpcut.
Every time you when you copy code pieces Flycut stores it in history. Later you can past it using Shift-Command-V even if you have something different in your current clipboard. You can change hotkey and other settings in preferences.
Developed by developers for developers.
Move and resize windows on macOS with keyboard shortcuts. Rectangle is a window management app based on Spectacle, written in Apple Swift. Spectacle used its own keyboard shortcut recorder, while Rectangle uses MASShortcut, a well maintained open source library for shortcut recording in macOS apps. This cuts down dramatically on the number of bugs that were only in Spectacle because of the custom shortcut recorder.
Productivity
Welcome to Twobird, a new kind of email app that includes all your everyday tools. Write emails, create notes, set reminders and assign to-dos — all in your inbox.
Twobird is in early access. We are working hard to make it your favorite app, and would love to hear your feedback! Available on iOS, Mac, Web, and other major platforms.
NOTES & EMAIL BRING YOUR THOUGHTS TOGETHER
In Twobird, notes live in your inbox. Jot down ideas for your next project, plan your grocery list, manage your family budget and send mom an email; all from one place.
Scheduled an appointment? Create a reminder inside your inbox. Twobird will alert you at just the right time.
LIVE COLLABORATION IN YOUR CONVERSATIONS
Share a Twobird note and transform a shopping list into a party planner. Assign tasks, make edits, leave comments and discuss changes with everyone involved.
Shared notes can be nested inside your email so you can see everyone's ideas come together, in real-time.
EMAIL THAT'S EASIER TO READ
Twobird hides distractions like signatures and complex formatting, so you focus on what matters.
Emails can feel formal. Twobird's chatty design keeps conversations light and natural. Respond quickly with @ mentions that loop people into discussions and emojis, because sometimes all you need is a thumbs up.
POWERFUL FEATURES KEEP YOU FOCUSED
- Remind allows you to schedule an email or note to appear in your inbox later.
- Low Priority sets aside automated messages so you don’t get distracted.
- Pinned and Recent lists keep important notes & conversations easily accessible.
- Tidy Up archives inactive conversations so your inbox stays fresh.
PRIVACY MATTERS
Your information stays private. We will never use your personal data for anything; we rely only on anonymous data, like how many times a button has been clicked, to improve the Twobird experience.
Connect your existing Gmail account to discover your new inbox for free.
Facebook Messenger is a faster way to message. Reach friends right on their phones, get and send messages fast, message everyone at once and more.
Top Features: • Message friends, groups of friends or anyone in your mobile contacts • Map your location, find your friends and make plans on the go • Get mobile notifications so you never miss a message • Include photos so friends can see what you're doing
Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service which enables user cloud storage, file sharing and collaborative editing.
Google Drive incorporates the Google Docs suite, a collaborative office suite of productivity applications that offers:
- Google Docs , a word processor;
- Google Sheets , a spreadsheet application;
- Google Slides , a presentation program;
- Google Drawings , a graphics application;
- Google Forms , a form designer.
Google Drive gives you access to your work from anywhere, across your Mac, PC, mobile devices and on the web. Simply download Drive on your Mac or PC to sync files from your computer to the cloud. Update a file on one device and changes are automatically saved to Drive and your other device, so you have the most up-to-date version of your files wherever you need them.
Bring your work to life : Share files or whole folders with individuals, your entire team or even customers and partners. In the Docs, Sheets and Slides editors multiple people can work on the same document at the same time
Buy what you need & grow flexibly : Start with up to 15 GB of included storage for each of your users. Need more? For as little as $4/month for 20GB, administrators can centrally purchase and manage up to 16TB (Yes, that’s 16,000 GB!) of additional storage for each user.
Before launching Drive for desktop, we had two sync solutions available: Backup and Sync, which was built primarily for consumer users, and Drive File Stream, which was built for business users. Now, we're unifying these sync clients into the new Drive for desktop, bringing people the best and most used features from both Backup and Sync and Drive File Stream, including the ability to:
Upload and sync photos and videos to Google Photos and/or Google Drive
Sync external storage devices to the cloud, including flash drives and external hard drives
Mirror Drive files on your desktop, which stores your files on your local device and enables quicker access to your content
Understand exactly how you spend your time and attention, with no data entry.
Get Smarter with Effortless Time Tracking With no data entry, know exactly what software and sites you’re actively using.
Beat Interruption Overload Clobber procrastination with Goals & Alerts and watch your efficiency grow.
Compare Your Productivity See your time management efficiency compared to the average RescueTime user.
