The Best Writing Apps for Mac. Now, let’s start digging into the best writing apps for your Mac. This list isn’t in order of best, but rather moves from most popular, most easily available, down to niche apps designed for specific purposes. Full Word Processors for Mac. Full word processors are applications that do pretty much anything you. The apps are available on Mac, iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPad. Check out our 15 day free trial. It’s the rare to-do list app that doesn’t try to force you into a particular way of thinking. It’s more like a clean, crisp piece of paper, ready whenever you need it.”. Things 3.6 is the MacStories Selects ‘Best App.
To do lists don't need to be complicated–some people use pen and paper for the job, after all. And yet there are seemingly infinite to do list apps out there. Why? Because keeping track of and organizing your tasks is an intensely personal thing, and everyone wants to do it a little differently. This makes designing a to do list incredibly difficult: it's impossible to offer one design that makes everyone happy.
And it's particularly hard to make Mac users happy. They, perhaps more than users of any other platform, are picky and expect things to look and work a certain way. Applications that don't feel like they were designed for macOS are distracting because things like keyboard shortcuts, notifications, and menus don't work the way they do in other applications. That disrupts your workflow, which defeats the entire point of productivity software.
These are the best to-do list apps for iPhone, Android and Mac that can help to increase your productivity. On Mac the standard version costs $39.99 (Pro is $79.99) and iOS is £39.99 (Pro. I have used this app for over three years now and find it to be the very best to do or anything else list out there! I gladly paid for this app - not because I was asked to, but because I wanted to reward the creator, it's that good. The only difference with the paid version is that you get iCloud sink which I absolutely love between my iPhone.
We thought about all of these things while we tested every macOS to do list application we could get our hands on. There's an incredible range of options out there, all looking to serve different kinds of users. Which one you prefer may well boil down to personal taste. In our opinion, the very best Mac to do lists apps need to do five key things:
- Offer multiple ways to organize tasks, such as tags, lists, due dates, or projects.
- Make it fast to add new tasks without opening the app, ideally using a keyboard shortcut.
- Remind you about self-imposed deadlines.
- Offer a clean interface, with native macOS features like notifications, widgets, and integration with the menu bar.
- Sync tasks to your phone.
With these criteria in mind, here are the best to do list apps you can find for macOS. All offer free trials of some sort, so try out anything that looks useful to you.
In this article:
- Things: Best blend of powerful features with elegant design
- Todoist: Best to do list app for Mac users who need to sync with other platforms
- OmniFocus: Best option for power users and GTD fans
- Reminders: Best simple option for Apple-only users
- GoodTask: Best way to make Reminders more powerful
- 2Do: Best fully customizable to do list with multiple syncing options
- TaskPaper: Best text-based list for managing tasks with only your keyboard
- TickTick: Best cross-platform option that feels native to the Mac
Things (macOS, iPhone, iPad)
Best blend of powerful features with elegant design
To do list apps tend to fall into two categories: the complex and the minimalist. Things is somehow both.
Android sms app mac. Open Things for Mac and it looks simple: You've got an Inbox for your tasks and the option to add more lists. Dig a little, though, and there are all kinds of advanced tools here. There are nesting ways to organize your tasks: Areas can contain tasks or projects; projects can contain tasks or headers that can also contain tasks; even tasks can contain sub-tasks if you want. It sounds confusing but it isn't, which really speaks to how well Things is designed. There's no right way to use this system: Use as many or as few of the organizational options given to you, however you like, to make sense of your chaotic list of tasks, choose which things you want to do today, and then do those things.
Other applications offer features like this, sure, but Things manages to do so without feeling cluttered. And as a native application with no Windows or web equivalent, Things feels very much at home on the macOS desktop. Combine this blend of functionality and beauty with features like a system-wide tool for quickly adding tasks, integration with your calendar so you can see your appointments while planning your day, intuitive keyboard shortcuts, reminders with native notifications, integration with over 1,000 apps via Zapier and syncing to an iPhone and iPad app. https://iogorl.weebly.com/what-capacity-has-the-photos-app-on-a-mac.html. It's a powerful way to organize your tasks–and then accomplish them.
Things price: The macOS version costs $49.99 but offers a 15-day free trial. The iPad version costs $19.99 and the iPhone version costs $9.99.
Todoist (macOS, iPhone, iPad, Watch, Android, Windows, Web)
Best for Mac users who need to sync with other platforms
Most Mac users stay within the Apple ecosystem…but not all of them. If you need to sync your tasks from macOS to Windows, Android, or basically any other non-Apple option, Todoist is one of the first applications you should check out. Like Things, it's deceptively simple but has all kinds of advanced task management features hidden just below the surface, though Todoist does feel a little less at home on the Mac desktop.
That's because the macOS application of Todoist is basically the web version in a dedicated window. There are a few native Mac features: notifications, a menu bar icon, and a Today widget. And there's also a universal keyboard shortcut for quickly adding tasks, and that alone makes the Mac app worth installing for Todoist users.
Having said that, Todoist is a solid application. You can arrange your tasks in all sorts of meaningful ways, sync them everywhere, and never worry about not having access.
Todoist price: Free; some features, including labels and attachments, require a subscription that starts at $3 a month.
OmniFocus (macOS, iPhone, iPad)
Best option for power users and GTD fans
If you're particular about how your tasks are arranged, and I mean really particular, OmniFocus is right for you. This application is a power user's dream, allowing you to organize your task in seemingly never-ending variations. There are three different kinds of projects you can set up, for example. There are six main views by default, ranging from the Inbox for unsorted tasks, Forecast for seeing scheduled tasks in context with any of your macOS Calendar appointments, and Review for going over completed tasks at the end of the day or week. You can also create your own views if this isn't enough for you. You can even integrate Omnifocus with 1000+ applications via Zapier, if you want.
This isn't an application that's quick to learn, and things can feel cluttered at times. Once you figure everything out, however, you'll have an elaborate, GTD-style task list that works exactly the way you want. Combine this with a system-wide keyboard shortcut for quick task entry and you've got no excuse when it comes to keeping things organized.
OmniFocus for Mac syncs with iPhone and iPad, and there's even a web version, currently in testing, so you can access your tasks while using Windows devices (sadly this is occasionally necessary.) Fleetwood mac sara download mp3.
OmniFocus for Mac syncs with iPhone and iPad, and there's even a web version, currently in testing, so you can access your tasks while using Windows devices (sadly this is occasionally necessary.) Fleetwood mac sara download mp3.
OmniFocus price: OmniFocus for Mac starts at $39.99 after a 14-day trial. The Pro version, which allows you to customize the sidebar with your own views among other features, costs $79.00. The iPhone and iPad version starts at $39.99, and also offers a 14-day free trial.
Reminders (Mac, iPhone, iPad, Web)
Best simple option for Mac, iPhone, and iPad users
The best to do list is the one you have with you, right? If you own a Mac you already have Reminders, which comes free with every Apple device.
Apple's default application for managing tasks is a simple one, allowing you to create lists of tasks and schedule when you'll do them. You can then view those tasks or view any day's worth of tasks across all lists, and that's about it. But this simplicity might be a big plus: You get in, add tasks, and then get to work.
There's no universal keyboard shortcut for adding tasks, but there is integration with Siri for Mac, which is something no other app on this list can claim. And iCloud integration means you can sync tasks with your iPhone and iPad very easily. You've already got this application so why not give it a shot?
Reminders price: Included with all Macs, iPhones, and iPads.
GoodTask (macOS, iPhone, iPad, Watch)
Best way to make Reminders more powerful
Reminders is great but not exactly feature rich. GoodTask is unique in that it uses Reminders as a backend–add anything to GoodTask and it will show up in Reminders and vice versa. So what's the point? GoodTask offers features that Apple doesn't in Reminders.
First there's Calendar integration, meaning you can see your calendar appointments and your tasks in one place. You can also create smart lists, allowing you to filter your tasks using things like tags, due dates, and locations. You'll have to spend some time setting this up before it's any better than Reminders, but if you've got a specific overview of tasks in mind you can probably design it here. GoodTask also offers a fully customizable Today widget, which isn't something offered by any other application we tested. Integration with Reminders means all your tasks sync to the iPhone and iPad without the need for any other software, though there are versions of GoodTask available for those devices if you want the same power on those devices.
There are a few downsides. There's no universal keyboard shortcut for creating tasks, though thanks to Reminders integration you can use Siri for Mac instead. Overall, GoodTask is a nice little upgrade over Reminders.
GoodTask for Mac price: $19.99 with a 14-day free trial. GoodTask is also available on Setapp, which is a $10 a month subscription service with access to dozens of Mac applications. There's also an iPhone and iPad version available for free, with an in-app purchase of $9.99 to unlock all features.
2Do (Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android)
Best fully customizable to do list with multiple syncing options
2Do fits right in on the Mac desktop. It looks a little cluttered at first glance, but it's also really powerful. You can create lists, then put projects or checklists inside those lists. You can add tags and due dates. You can create smart lists, allowing you to view your tasks however you like. And there are a way more options than that if you're willing to put the time in. This is a power user's to do list, which you can bend to just about any workflow. It's going to take you while, but it's going to be worth it.
There's no calendar integration, which is unfortunate, but there are plenty of other integrations with the rest of your system. A universal keyboard shortcut makes it quick to add new tasks, notifications let you know about upcoming deadlines, and there's even a handy Today widget for quickly checking off tasks.
Syncing is unique here because there are multiple options. You can sync to the iPhone or Android version of 2Do using iCloud, Dropbox, Yahoo Calendar, Fruux, Toodledo, or any CalDAV server. You can also access synced tasks on any of those services, albeit without the 2Do specific features. It's a wide range of syncing options, beyond what any other app here offers, so give it a spin and see how it all works for you.
To Do List Free App
2Do for Mac price: $49.99, and there's a 21-day free trial. 2Do is also available on Setapp, which is a $10 a month subscription service with access to dozens of Mac applications. User manual for kyo-ei digital compass calendar clock in&out thermometer.
TaskPaper (macOS)
https://iogorl.weebly.com/blog/sky-go-app-mac-not-working. Best text-based list for managing with only your keyboard
Wondering why to do lists have to be so complicated? TaskPaper isn't. This text-based option means you can just start typing to create your to do list. Projects end with colons; tasks begin with a hyphen; tags start with the @ symbol. It sounds simple but it's surprisingly powerful once you get used to it, especially with the filtering and search options.
There isn't an iPhone version, but the third party application Taskmator ($4.99) is compatible and syncs using Dropbox. Alternatively, you can set up TaskPaper to sync over items from Reminders.
Taskpaper price: $24.99 with a free trial. Taskpaper is also available on Setapp, which is a $10 a month subscription service with access to dozens of Mac applications.
TickTick (Mac, iPhone, iPad, Watch, Android, Windows)
Best cross-platform option that feels native to the Mac
TickTick is a straightforward to do application you can run on basically every platform on earth. Unlike other cross-platform applications, however, TickTick actually feels like a native Mac application. Some of this is good design choices, but there are also features that make TickTick stand out: menu bar icon with a miniature version of your list, integration with appointments from Calendar, and native notifications. There's also a keyboard shortcut for adding tasks from anywhere.
Organizing your tasks isn't complicated: you have lists, tags, due dates, and that's about it. But there are a few features here that other applications don't offer, including a built-in pomodoro timer. Try out TickTick out if you're looking for something straightforward, particularly if you need to sync over to non-Apple devices.
TickTick price: Free, but premium features like a monthly calendar view and custom smart lists require a $2.99 per month subscription.
A Few More Options
We tried a bunch of different applications for this article but couldn't quite include everything. Here are a few more options for you to consider:
- Trello isn't a to do list per se but you can use it to organize your life and there's a Mac app with native notifications and system-wide keyboard shortcuts.
- Evernote, OneNote, or any other note taking application can work very well as a to do list, and most offer a Mac app.
- TaskHeat allows you to organize your to do list as a flowchart, which is neat, but it can't sync with any other platform.
- Wunderlist used to be a no-brainer for lists like this and is still quite nice. The problem: Microsoft bought Wunderlist and is shutting it down at an undetermined point in the future. The replacement, Microsoft To-Do, is missing key features and does not offer a Mac application.
- Todo.txt is an open-source standard for storing your to do list in a plain text document. The command line app runs in the macOS Terminal, allowing you to add and manage tasks with commands. If that's not your style, TodoTxtMac is a nice GUI for the same standard.
source https://zapier.com/blog/best-mac-to-do-list-apps/
Welcome back productivity nerds. This is part two of a gripping trilogy on software highlights from 2017. In part one, I catalogued some of my favourite iPad apps from last year. The meat between the iOS device sandwich, is of course the Mac. So here we go again.
Before we begin, if you’re interested a number of the apps on this list come with Setapp. That is something I’ve written enough about recently, so if you'd like to read more about Setapp, you can do so here. The apps in question are clearly marked with the appropriate links. Remember, these are just the highlights. Why macos for programmers.
Back to the Mac
The barometer I use for organisational tools is how much time it takes to manage them. That I spend very little time in the app itself, is a good indication Things is doing what it’s supposed to. The way Things handles the inbox is better than any other task manager I have used. I don't feel like I am double handling tasks. I thought I might miss the automation of Todoist, but so far I haven't really, the email to Things feature is enough.
I still haven’t found the time to write this up properly, but I did give it a cursory post. While you can get lightweight versions of some features, there still nothing like Scrivener. This new version is a long way from the early skeuomorphic days. Now that the interface is so crisp, and clean, it looks every bit the modern Mac app. Further to the visual touches, a long list of new features have improved an already powerful piece of software. If you do any kind of serious long-form writing, and you’re still using a traditional word processor, I’m sorry but you’re mad. 1
Ulysses also makes the charts across both platforms. I use Scrivener a little more on macOS. But as I mentioned in the iPad post, all other project based, long-form writing, and content for this blog is created in Ulysses. I now also use it for posting directly to WordPress, and I couldn’t be happier with how well that works. Setapp takes care of my Ulysses subscription on macOS, and iOS.
Best Apps For Mac 2020
Most of my reading, annotating, and editing of PDFs happens on the iPad now. I’m so used to doing that work with an Apple Pencil that marking up PDFs on a Mac can be frustrating. Despite that, there are occasions that demand more screen space, and sometime I need to extract a lot of text from a PDF. Highlights can extract highlighted text, and annotations in Markdown, which is something I cannot do on iOS — defintely not in markdown. 2 Now that DEVONthink handles all of my OCR needs, this is the only other PDF app I need on the Mac.
While coverage has focused on the iOS version, 2017 was also the year I went all in with DEVONthink on macOS. I once shared the superficial concerns of some prospective users, but even if i’d like to see the interface overhauled, I’m glad I got over myself. 3 DEVONthink is a heavyweight application, so getting the most from it takes time. The depth of functionality is perfectly suited to the archive, search, and retrieve workflows required of serious research, so that time is worth investing. I no longer have any trouble finding important documents. My records are organised with some sanity, and I know how, and where to find research I have spent considerable time gathering.
I have known about TaskPaper for a long time, but never really used it properly. That changed last year. With TaskPaper’s plain text super powers, I have cobbled together something resembling a system for planning and tracking my reading, among other things. It might seem like overkill to be employing a form of task management on top of a dedicated task manager, but it helps my scattered mind no end to seperate the finer details. Setapp
Anyone working with text should have this in their kit. No matter what that work entails. Marked is a kind of Swiss army knife for writers. If you are relentlessly obsessive about what you do with words, you will recognise a fellow traveller in this app. It even includes features to improve your writing. Anything I write about Marked risks underselling it. It’s worth a hell of a lot more than what it will cost you. Setapp
I archive a lot of data in DEVONthink, but I don’t use it for bookmarks. Instead I use the perennial wonder machine, Pinboard.in for archiving web pages. Spillo is easily my favourite macOS client for pinboard. Minimal, and opinionated with just the right amount of nerdiness. It’s fully scriptable, and even has its own plugin SDK. Since setting up an Alfred workflow with Spillo, I get more use out of Pinboard than ever.
Being and Nerdiness
Until last year, I hadn’t done any programming for a long time. I still don’t, but I can at least lay claim to vandalising code in my attempts to learn how to. For my humble use of git as it is, Tower is more than I need. Then again, using such a wonderfully designed piece of software can only be helpful if I’m to learn things the right way. Working Copy on iOS is currently my favourite Git client on any platform, but this is a pretty close second. Things could change any day now.
I agonised over choosing a text editor for learning development skills. With growing support out there for Visual Studio, I gave it a test run. If easier to configure, ultimately I didn’t like working in it. I tried Atom, and liked the general feel, but I can’t yet benefit from its configurability — honestly it felt kind of slow. In the end, true to form, I landed where I started. Now that I have it set up properly, Sublime text has become one of my favourite applications. As for extensibility, the Sublime SFTP package is the best thirty bucks I have spent in some time.
Best To Do List App For Macbook
![App App](/uploads/1/3/4/1/134186489/522372702.jpg)
Another of the technical tools I require, this one has a lot of tricks. To call Forklift the best FTP client I know of would undersell it4. With a slick designed dual pane file browser, file syncing, drive mounting, keyboard kung fu, and all round excellence, these days it is always open on my Mac. Setapp
The most deceptively simple looking app I own. Super Duper overcame a momentary rough patch to deliver an unbelievable improvement to an already excellent utility. With the advent of APFS, it now creates bootable snapshots. The scheduler works so efficiently, I hardly even notice. I can’t begin to express the peace of mind.
The Digital Cage
There was an intense time-tracking trend among a sub-section of nerds last year. Trust me, that’s not happening here. I find the idea of tracking every aspect of your life disturbing. I use this app in a much less pervasive way, for tracking writing projects. I gather data on how long it takes me to write certain things, so I can better understand deadlines. Whether self-imposed, or not. Timing makes this easy, as it can automatically capture time spent in particular applications. Setapp
A contacts app is not something that would ordinarily interest me, I have only humble contact management needs. Since contact syncing started to work properly, I have been happy to use the native contacts app and forget about it. I felt much the same way about calendars until I tried Fantastical. The Flexibits natural language engine is like magic, and sure enough they have put it to good use in Cardhop.
Utilities
Spotlight can only take you so far. For keyboard warriors, an application launcher is mandatory. Beyond a long list of built in features, Alfred is an endlessly extensible, powerful automation tool. An active, and generous user community means there are workflows for just about anything, and help at hand if you want to hack together your own.
This is one of those utilities I never knew I needed. It’s common knowledge iTunes is a mess. Apple’s answer is to remove things without replacing them. Whenever it seems I can no longer do something with an iOS device, the answer is iMazing. Setapp
I could have put this on the iOS list too. I published a post recently on how I use 1Blocker to keep me sane while using the internet. Whether you want to block ads or not, the web is often a shady place. Stopping yourself from being tracked might be a hopeless pursuit, but you can at least make it difficult. I’m happy knowing my computing resources aren’t being filched for crypto-mining. I’m also a control freak, so I’ll let through what I please thank you very much.
For much the same reason as above. I prefer to know what’s dialling home. While incredibly powerful, Little Snitch is too noisy for my liking. Radio Silence is much more simple, and yet it still gives me the control I want. In short, this little firewall rules.
Without this little utility, my menu bar would look insane. Version 3 was released a few months back. Instead of dropping beneath, the menu bar now toggles between your main utilities and whatever you choose to hide. A subtle, but worthwhile change. It works so well it will probably be sherlocked.
Making and Breaking
This is an aspirational app at the moment, it’s probably overkill. My image editing needs a fairly simple, and most of it is done on the iPad. Especially now, with Affinity Photo on iPad Pro. However, Pixelmator has always been an app that I could grok easier than other image editors, so I picked this up in the hope that I could develop some chops. What little I have done with it so far, has been a pleasure.
Another project yet to see the light of day led me to this audio marvel. If you have any cause for routing, or capturing audio on your Mac, this is how you do it. The modular, drag and drop, visual workflow, makes sense out of confusing audio chains. Along with all the built in audio processing, it even supports Audio Unit plugins.
- The idea of long-form writing seems to have taken on new meaning recently. To be clear, I’m referring to books, theses, and so on. For long blog posts, it might be overkill. ↩
- Unless somebody knows an app that can do this? ↩
- It could probably lose a few features ↩
- Yes, yes SFTP. Of course. ↩