Everyone’s productivity workflow has a few weak spots – but the best productivity apps for Mac can patch up these holes.

With the best Mac apps, 2020 can be the most productive year you’ve ever had. Let’s take a look at some of Mac users’ favorite apps:

1. Enhance Your Calls with Krisp

Most people communicate more effectively through voice calls than through text – but poor audio quality can ruin everything.

Krisp increases your call quality by removing background noise from your calls, letting only your (or their) voice through.

The Best Productivity Apps for 2020 – A Complete List These are the apps we recommend for building a complete productivity stack – for iOS, Android, Mac, & Windows Illustration by Kelsey Wroten. Boost Your Productivity On Mac With These Apps. These 15 apps are, in our opinion, the best apps to boost your productivity on the Mac. Now go, try them out, see how they can help you and let us know about your experience in the comments section below. Try apps like Hazel, which is an automated organization tool created for Mac. With it, you customize parameters which the app will follow when organizing files. Buying the program costs $32 only, which is enough for one of the best productivity apps for Mac. Use Shortcuts to Type Longer Texts.

This cutting-edge technology puts it among the best productivity apps for Mac since it reduces the time wasted in calls or from misunderstandings.

2. Speed Things up with CleanMyMac

A full hard drive or sluggish computer can bring your productivity to a screeching halt.

Fortunately, CleanMyMac gets rid of files you don’t need while making your Mac OS run faster.

3. Getting Things Done (GTD) with Amazing Marvin (Also for Android and Windows)

If you’re looking for an all-in-one productivity planner app, Mac users will want to check out Amazing Marvin – one of the best productivity apps for Mac.

It features a Pomodoro timer, time tracking, calendar, task management, project management, and templates for popular productivity methodologies (or create your own workflow).

4. Manage Personal Projects with OmniFocus

If you’re looking for a relatively straightforward personal management app to help you manage your projects, OmniFocus might fit the bill.

It features file attachments, notes, dates, to-do lists, and project planning, making it many people’s choice for one of the best productivity apps for Mac.

5. Stay on Task with Todoist

It’s a free, powerful to-do list app for Mac. Nifty features like natural language let you quickly add and manage tasks with shortcuts.

The paid version adds a few more tools like backups, automatic reminders, and more.

6. Toggl for Time Tracking

If you want time tracking without using an all-in-one app like Amazing Marvin, you’ll like Toggl. It integrates with a variety of apps and even has a Chrome extension.

It earns its place among the best productivity apps for Mac with an outstanding feature: it detects when you’re idle. Say goodbye to opening your Mac the next day to find you accidentally tracked 21 hours while away.

7. Know Where You’re Spending Your Time with Timing

Toggl is helpful, but you’ll always need to turn it on to track where your time is going.

Timing is always watching, letting you know which apps and websites you’re using, and reporting how much time you’re spending with informative graphs.

8. Keep Your Macbook Pro Professional – Organize It with Hazel

As a powerful Mac desktop organizer, Hazel can keep your filesystem in order – automatically.

For example, you can have it sort files into folders, delete unnecessary files, apply tags, and more. This automation gives it its spot as one of the best productivity apps for Mac.

9. Say Hello to Your New Virtual Assistant: Alfred

One of the best free Mac apps of 2020 is Alfred.

It’s an application launcher but does many more small tasks. Think of it as bridging the void between Spotlight and Siri.

10. Avoid Repetitive Typing with TextExpander

Coders are familiar with the productivity boost from text expanders – and now you can tap into that power in everyday life on your Mac.

Text expansion makes it unquestionably one of the best productivity apps for Mac. For example, you could have it automatically expand the text “ty” to “Thank you.”

11. Take and Organizes Notes with Evernote

Evernote has been around for a long time, proving its worth.

It lets you take notes from text, audio, PDFs, and images – then file them into notebooks, sync them to the cloud, and share them with others.

12. Bear – Simple Note-taking Necessities

Sometimes you just need to jot down a quick note or to-do list – not harness the full note-taking power of something like Evernote.

Let Bear do the trick when all you need is a quick, convenient note.

13. Transcribe Notes with Otter

Some notes are simpler to write without typing. If you’re writing a novel, why stare at your screen if you could narrate it?

Otter recognizes audio and transcribes it into notes.

14. Stick Windows Wherever You Need with Magnet

Sometimes you need to view multiple windows at once, and you don’t have enough monitors.

Magnet makes it a cinch to organize and lock windows onto your screen for more multitasking goodness.

15. Don’t Let Your Mac or Ipad Disrupt Your Sleep – Use Flux

Screens emit blue light, which makes it difficult for us to sleep. Need to finish something up right before bed?

Flux adjusts the color of your display depending on the time of day, helping you fall asleep faster.

16. Block out Distractions with White Noise Lite

There’s nothing wrong with listening to music while you work, but it’s still an extra distraction for your brain.

White Noise Lite provides you with a variety of ambient sounds from nature, colors, and house appliances to keep you focused.

17. Keep Backups Safe with Backblaze

There are few things more terrifying than losing your (or your client’s) files when your Mac crashes or is lost.

Fortunately, Backblaze automatically backs up your hard drive to the cloud, making it simple to restore in an emergency.

18. Write Faster with Grammarly

Even if your grammar and spelling are impeccable, mistakes still happen when sending out an email or writing a document – especially if you’re in a hurry.

Grammarly makes it simple to check your spelling, highlight grammatical issues, and suggest better phrasing and synonyms.

19. 1Password to Rule Them All

Ever been in a hurry, but had to run the forgot-my-password gauntlet?

Rather than wasting precious moments of your time, let 1Password remember your passwords for you.

20. Gamify Habits with Habitica

Building proper work habits is critical for productivity – but it’s all too easy to forget that we were trying to develop the habit.

Habitica “gamifies” this process: completing habits levels up your character, unlocks new gear, and even lets you fight bosses with your friends.

21. Use Cold Turkey as an IOS Website Blocker (and More)

Despite our best efforts, digital distractions abound and often get the best of us.

Cold Turkey doesn’t just let you block specific pages of distracting websites – it’ll show you a quote to inspire you to get back to work.

22. The Hardcore Attention App for Mac: Focus

Focus works similar to Cold Turkey – it’ll block distracting websites for specific amounts of time with one click.

Even better, it’s nearly impossible to disable without restarting your computer – making it a hassle to try and sneak around in a moment of weakness.

23. Unboggle Your Mind Using Mindmaps with Coggle

Mind maps – using visual drawing to chart out an idea or thought process – can be a great way to think through a problem or solution productively.

A physical paper runs out of space, but Coggle never will. Plus, it lets you collaborate on your mindmaps with others.

24. Copy-paste More (and Everywhere) with Copied

Copied a note on your iPhone, and need it on your Mac? Do you find yourself needing to copy multiple things (and keep them in memory)?

Copied saves multiple items to your clipboard and syncs across your devices.

25. Create and Share Screen Recordings with Loom

Loom’s modern interface makes it simple to create and share screen recordings, along with real-time audio and video from your Mac’s webcam.

It’s a helpful app for effective remote work team communication and collaboration.

Solve Productivity Problems with these Apps

We don’t want too many apps, or we risk wasting our time while managing them all. However, strategically picking apps to fill the gap gives you precisely what you need to be more productive.

Which one is your favorite? Let us know, and kick your productivity up a notch with these best productivity apps for Mac.

Working from home (WFH, also called telecommuting or telework) is becoming an increasingly common practice. In 2020, the necessity to effectively work remotely is crucial to productivity more than ever. Here at Parallels, we refuse to pretend as if remote work is a new trend. In 2019, the Business Harvard Review proved that remote employees are found to be more productive, have a lower chance of turnover, and are healthier in both their mental and physical well-being.

However, there is a delicate balance between working from home and effectively working from home.

This delicate balance boils down to the applications an individual could use to stay productive.

For macOS users, there is a nearly never-ending list of native features and apps to help stay on task. The team here at Parallels has researched far and wide to narrow down the most useful macOS apps for everyone who is working remotely.

Here are the best macOS applications to help stay productive when working from home in 2020:

Utilities:

• Parallels Toolbox
• Alfred
• Google Chrome
• Snag-it

Project Management:

• Task Paper
• Todoist
• Asana

Knowledge Workers:

• Parallels Desktop
• BBEdit
• Grammarly

Best Productivity Mac Apps 2020

Communication:

• Discord
• Microsoft Teams

Mood-Boosting:

• Spotify
• Swift Playgrounds
• Yack for Reddit(in beta)

Breaking down our list into categories makes it a bit easier to find the app you’re looking for considering the vast landscape of available macOS apps. Now, let’s deep dive into how these macOS apps can make your work from home experience more productive.

Utilities Must-Haves for macOS:

Parallels Toolbox

Parallels Toolbox is a suite available of macOS of one-click tools that make everything easier. We do mean everything. While there are dozens of tools within Parallels Toolbox, I want to outline the specific tools used to help make my work from home life more productive. The tools Alarm, Stopwatch, and Timer are all fantastic for time management. During meetings, the Alarm Tool has found to be wildly helpful to stay on task – individually, and I can present without continually looking at the clock and becoming distracted. The Stopwatch tool in Parallels Toolbox is excellent when managing a large meeting. This tool gives each presenter the same amount of time, making it helpful to be respectful of everyone’s time and collective voice. The Timer tool has become necessary when it comes to time management because I give myself an allocated time for a task before moving to the next item on my to-do list.

There are a few more tools hidden in Parallels Toolbox that makes working from home a breeze. The tool, Energy Saver, can be used automatically when disconnected from the charger or when you enable it manually. Energy Saver consists of several different options to prolong a computer’s battery life by optimizing resource consumption such as pausing non-essential processes such as Spotlight indexing, AppStore updates check, and macOS updates check. Additionally, Energy Saver is intelligent enough to eject external devices, pause Time Machine backups, and hide non-active (idle) apps. It makes the hidden applications go to the built-in macOS App Nap mode, where they consume very little energy.

Pro tip: Parallels Toolbox tools Hide Desktop or Presentation Mode are game-changers during presentations. The Hide Desktop tool hides all the files, folders, and other icons on your desktop when you’re doing a presentation, sharing or recording your screen, or taking screenshots with one click. If you’re worried about push notifications that you may have enabled, your Mac going to sleep, or distractions from bouncing icons in your macOS Dock, check out the Parallels Toolbox user favorite, Presentation Mode. This endlessly helpful tool disables distractions for a better presentation experience. The Presentation Mode tool can automatically detect external displays and turn them on, too. Also available for Windows 10, but more Parallels Toolbox tools are available on macOS.

Alfred

Alfred for macOS is an award-winning app that can seriously boost productivity with efficient hotkeys, keyword shortcuts, quick text expansion, and so more, based on your needs. Similar to macOS Spotlight, Alfred enables an intelligent search through macOS and the web and encourages users to be more productive with custom actions to extend and automate the efficiency of your work on your Mac.

The team at Alfred also offers an additional add-on, the Alfred Powerpack. You can instantly enable more profound control your Mac with the Powerpack’s third-party app integration such as iTunes, 1Password, Shell. Plus, endless workflows and themes that make staring at your computer screen for 8-hours a day more enjoyable.

Google Chrome

Readers may laugh at a suggestion of a web browser to help boost productivity. Still, there’s a lot of power in Google Chrome that some primary users may not know about or be utilizing. While I was researching the best extensions for Google Chrome, I came across a supremely helpful article from Kyle Pearce over at DIYGenius. Kyle has an extensive list of useful Google Chrome extensions to stay productive, and I urge you to check it out ASAP.

My absolute favorite extension to Google Chrome was UBlock Origin, a free and open-source, cross-platform browser extension for content-filtering such as ad-blocking. However, the ad-blocker Kyle mentioned Ghostery is next-level and I believe it performs better on Google Chrome than UBlock. I’ve already made the switch, and I suggest you do, too!

Snag-it

I first stumbled upon Snag-it back in 2018 when a coworker here at Parallels suggested it to me for a presentation. It felt like just another tool to create a screenshot. Wow, I was SO wrong. In 2020, Snag-it is outperforming any other screenshot tool I’ve tried and has the smoothest user experience I’ve felt in a long while.

To summarize, Snagit lets you quickly capture a process, add your explanation, and create visual instructions without any frustration. Truly, I cannot emphasize how excellent Snag-it is at transforming your communication. You can save hours of your time to help visualize your ideas in ways other people can easily understand. Not to mention, my favorite feature of Snag-it is the panoramic capture. Capture wide, horizontal scrolls, scrolling webpages, and everything in-between.

Project Management That is Easy to Use:

Task Paper

TaskPaper is a plain-text to-do list that’s surprisingly adept and thoroughly modernized. Since 2006, TaskPaper has delivered an excellent and easy to use to-do interface. This tool makes keeping your lists, searching with palettes to filter your never-ending lists, scheduling future dates/events easier than ever.

Not to mention, the clean UX makes for a distraction-less experience. While the minimalistic UX makes Task Paper look a bit bare-bones, this intelligent to-do list is packed with much more than just a simple interface.

Todoist

Todoist is used by over 20 million users to organize, plan, and collaborate on projects, both big and small, since 2007. While Todoist isn’t exclusive to macOS due to support via a mobile and web interface, it’s been a favorite of mine for years now. Why? Well, they also have a Google

Chrome plug-in that has enabled next-level multitasking habits.

With extensive access to over 60 integrations with some big hitters like Google Drive, Dropbox, Zapier, Evernote, and Slack – Todoist will quickly become your hub for getting work and life organized. Plus, their Wunderlist importer can help you switch tools and get started in just a few minutes if you’re looking for a change. If you’re working across multiple Macs or devices, Todoist makes it easy to pick up and continue crossing your tasks off your plate!

Asana

Asana is a widely adopted project management system that allows project managers or individuals to map out each step and organize all the details of your work in one place. Many small, medium or large enterprise companies utilize Asana, Parallels included. Here at Parallels, we love Asana! With the ability to create tasks that are dependent on other tasks, it makes coordinating with your team a breeze.

Truly, Asana has quickly become one of my favorite collaboration tools. Simply because of the ability to visualize multiple stages of projects quickly, easily, and the beauty of the UX makes this for a refreshing project management system. Simplifying workflows means reduced errors, and ultimately, saving time for solving more essential problems means I can get to work quicker. Every day, I log in, see my projects, and act accordingly. Asana has vast integration across many systems such as JIRA, Salesforce, PowerBI, Slack, Tableau, Adobe Creative Cloud, and they’re adding new features often.

Knowledge Workers Need the Following:

Parallels Desktop

Parallels Desktop for macOS has been used by millions globally to run Windows, Linux, or other popular OSes on Mac without rebooting. Virtualization serves healthcare to accounting, IT, CAD, creativity, and every industry in between. Parallels Desktop supports users to utilize the software they need on the hardware they already have to ensure you can get your job done faster without buying a second or third computer.

Since 2006, macOS users get the best of both the Mac and PC worlds on one device while you’re working remotely with virtualization. The best part? Parallels Desktop has thousands of supported applications within Microsoft Windows so that every industry can be supported. Plus, a free 14-day trial makes it easy to see if your specific needs are served with a virtual machine in Parallels Desktop. Not to mention, 24/7 support and our 30-day money-back guarantee.

BBEdit

BBEdit has one of the best marketing slogans, “It doesn’t suck.” And the reason why it’s one of the best slogans is that the product rings true and serves a consistent level of quality that is hard to match. While this specific suggestion is more particular to those who need HTML or plain-text editors for macOS, it is powerful because of everything else it can do for you.

BBedit has been crafted to serve the specific needs of writers, devs, and provides endless features for editing. For a power user, the advanced search, manipulation of prose, source code, managing bash data, and textual data is all wrapped up in BBedit. To be clear, BBEdit is not a word processor. However, it can replace several apps on your Mac to become one of the most invaluable macOS apps in your arsenal.

Grammarly

Grammarly is easily in my top five favorite apps of all time. Why? Simply because of the copious amount of time it has saved me during my writing process.

Grammarly is the best writing assistant available that goes much deeper than surface-level grammar to offer you comprehensive feedback on your writing. On the technical side, Grammarly is simply a digital writing tool that uses a combination of artificial intelligence and natural language processing. Read: it makes the writing process more comfortable and much less painful.

Communication with Your Friends or Work Team:

Discord

Consider Discord to be my macOS guilty pleasure of choice. While it’s also available for Windows PC, the macOS app is clean. It allows me to connect with friends or coworkers without frustration. Creating my private server or linking to my friend’s server makes everything separate and easy.

Discord lacks the messy UX that most other chat services offer. Sharing your gaming, your work, or whatever you need to share on your screen, is also cleaner than most other communication apps. Not to mention, it’s cheeky copywriting within the app makes me smirk every time I launch the app, making it easy to want to continue to use it.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is the professional-grade communication tool that my team wanted but didn’t know we needed until we had it. The ability to chat, meet, share, call, and collaborate from anywhere as a global team has increased our productivity ten-fold within the first couple of weeks we started utilizing MS Teams.

It’s not just a communication tool, either. Microsoft Teams is robust enough to support calls, workflows, and meets industry-specific compliances such as healthcare or education. With our world evolving to a fully global digital landscape, Microsoft Teams is here to save the day with endless productivity. Microsoft said it best, with Teams you can work remotely without feeling remote – and it rings true through my personal experience.

Mood-Boosting to Keep Your Brain Productive While Working.

Note: While this blog post is explicitly surrounding the topic of productivity while working remotely, it’s imperative to mention the balance that goes behind productivity. Working your brain without breaks for fun is an expressway to burnout. Let’s avoid burnout by taking fun breaks with these following apps:

Spotify

Spotify has always been my music-platform of choice due to release exclusives and social components, but Spotify is a secret weapon to a productive day for several reasons. Firstly, Spotify’s market share is massive, so that you can listen everywhere. From speakers to tv’s, cars, gaming, smartwatches, smart displays, and all the best personal assistants. Secondly, their licensing options are fantastic. Of course, Spotify comes free with ads.

However, if you’re looking to ditch the ads for a distraction-free listening experience, Spotify has several subscription options. Spotify Premium has several levels to the membership: Premium, Premium Family, and Premium Student.

What are the differences in Spotify Premium memberships?

Spotify Premium:

• Unlimited high-quality streaming access to over 50 million songs.
• Travel abroad with no limitations.
• No ad interruption.
• Unlimited skips.

Premium Family:

• Up to 6 family members who live together
• Each member has their own Individual Premium account, so there’s no need to share login details.
• Plus Family Mix – a playlist based on the tastes of everyone on the plan.
• Plan managers can control explicit music for members.

Premium Student:

• 50% off discount
• Lasts 1 year at a time, with a 4-year limit.
• Available to students at an accredited college/university, verified by SheerID.
• Access to Hulu’s ad-supported plan and SHOWTIME for no extra cost.

Mac Productivity Software

Swift Playgrounds

Swift Playgrounds from Apple is an un-matched method to learn how to code. While it is available to both Mac and iPad, taking a break from your day to day to build with Swift Playgrounds adds a fun dimension to your overall productivity. It’s perfect for new-to-coding beginners and utilizes gamification to grasp the core basics of Swift – Apple’s powerful programming language.

The best thing about Apple is their curiosity for innovation and Swift Playgrounds continuously releases new integrations such as robotics, LEGO® MINDSTORMS® EV3, and even augmented reality (AR) to master our real 3D world. Apple is smart and understands as you learn, you’ll want more to play with. Because of this, Apple offers a variety of fun devices to shop.

Yack

Yack hasn’t quite hit the market yet. However, if you sign up for the beta, it’s clear why Yack is a must-have for macOS Redditors. Without opening your web browser, you can explore your favorite Reddit communities from a single elegant desktop app with a unified user interface.

Also, if you spend the day scrolling through YouTube, Yack also allows you to browse YouTube using the same beautiful, intuitive UI you use to browse Reddit. It’s an excellent and refreshing way to take a short break and check in on what’s going on outside your remote working space.

The remote workday is envisioned with multiple hurdles of obstacles without any allowance for sanity. macOS users need flexible apps that are easily managed, quickly absorbed, and serves the need of the moment.

Best Mac Productivity Apps Reddit

The best macOS apps for productivity during remote work should consistently serve the everchanging needs of the digital worker. It is not always easy to craft the best environment for productivity during working remotely. Still, I sincerely hope this list has helped you sort through the hundreds of thousands of macOS apps that are available.

Best Productivity Mac Apps Downloads

Please, let us know what you think or if you have any suggestions for our list of the best macOS apps for productivity when working from home. Reach out to us on Facebook, Twitter, or in the comments below!