Top Productivity Apps for Mac You'll Need in 2024
To avoid overwhelm, you have to stay organized and be readily available to communicate with everyone. However, you find that this is one of your weaknesses and that you need help keeping your files and documents, or emails organized on your Mac and concentrate. Let's take a look at the 4 best Mac productivity applications and their pros and cons.
1. Bear
Do your notes get lost in a pile of papers on your desk? If so, we recommend you try digitizing your memos with a productivity app for Mac. This keeps everything in one place and allows you to easily copy and paste the information to other documents.
If you're seasoned with creating digital reminders, then you may be familiar with the basic, pre-installed productivity apps for Mac.
We agree that the Notes and Reminder apps are simple to use and get the job done when you need to jot down quick memos. However, as a businessperson, you have to be creative when documenting important information and have everything in one place. To do this, you'll need the best productivity app for Mac to write down notes and reminders.
That means in addition to features like highlighting, strikethrough, and headings; the note-taking system needs to have the ability to scan or convert detailed notes into a PDF or similar file. That's why we're introducing you to Bear.
What we like about it
Bear is a professional's dream note-taking and writing software. Its cloud allows you to see reminders on your iPhone or Mac and share them with your team or private with password protection.
The best part is that it's one of the few Mac productivity apps that will give you unlimited customization features.
For example, you can format your memos into an essay by using headings, lists, strikethroughs, quotes or track the read time, and more. This makes it easy for you to write up your proposals without opening a Word Document or Google Doc.
Similar to Google Docs, Bear lets you share and edit notes through its cloud to avoid having to send emails. However, if you do need to export your document to teammates or clients that don't use Bear, you have the option to convert the files into a variety of export styles such as HTML, PDF, DOCX, MD, and JPG.
What can be improved
No productivity app for Mac is perfect, so Bear has some opportunities for improvement. The biggest issue you may face is that there is no web application. So if you can't bring your Mac home from the office or don't have other Apple devices, you won't have access to it.
2. Pomodoro
Do you find yourself needing extra motivation to sit at your desk and finish a task? We understand it's hard focusing with so many distractions around the office. You could be interrupted by people stepping into your office or cubicle to ask a quick question, or you're sabotaged by your own daydreams. Either way, you need the best productivity app for Mac that will help you block out all the noise and get you motivated to finish any tedious tasks.
If this scenario resonates with you, you may wonder if any Mac productivity applications will meet this need. Luckily, Mac has the Pomodoro (Focus To-Do: Focus Timer & Tasks) app.
What we like about it
Pomodoro is a timer with a built-in task manager that gives you breaks in intervals to avoid burnout while doing work. You can control how long the breaks are and the amount of time you need to focus by making adjustments to the settings. That's what makes this time-blocking method good for increasing your productivity and keeping track of how long you've spent on a project or task.
What can be improved
We would like Pomodoro to enable a feature that blocks social media sites or hide low-priority email notifications to help professionals minimize distractions even more. Currently, you have to download other Mac productivity apps to block distracting websites alongside Pomodoro.
3. Clean Email
Do you receive at least 50 or more emails per day? Are they creating clutter in your inbox making it hard to find what you need even with the built-in search feature? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you may be looking for productivity apps for Mac that act as email management systems. You want it to be user-friendly and have the ability to seamlessly organize your inbox with categories of your choice. We think the best productivity app for Mac to achieve this level of email management is Clean Email.
What we like about it
Clean Email is a great way to go through thousands of emails and decide which ones to keep, which ones to delete, and which newsletters you need to unsubscribe to.
As a businessman, it's easy to email hoard because everything seems important at the time. Eventually, you feel so overwhelmed that you give up on trying to sort out the clutter because your inbox has exceeded 200 emails. Read our article about the concept of Inbox Zero, and how Clean Email can help to achieve it.
Clean Email breaks down your inbox into different categories like emails older than five years, and other pre-set folders that may be useful to you. You might also find the auto-clean feature helpful. It separates emails you may forget about or that you receive frequently into folders so you can have an overview of what you may want to clean out. There, you can set rules and quickly sort through emails that are older than 2 years, marketing, unread, and more. This helps you clear your mail storage on Mac (macOS 10.13+ including macOS 12 Monterey) and read emails faster.
What can be improved
There is no option to reply to emails from the app like you can from your regular email provider.
4. Hazel 4
Are you tired of files piling your desktop or having to manually put every document into a folder on your Mac?
We understand your frustration. Having to manually keep your Mac organized is a pain when combined with other responsibilities that need to be done at work. The last thing you want to worry about is locating the document through the clutter. We recommend downloading Hazel 4 for professionals with this issue.
What we like about it
Hazel 4 makes it easy to automate filing on your Mac by giving it rules it can follow to monitor any new or existing folders and documents.
You can tell Hazel 4 to delete documents or files that meet certain criteria like the amount of space it takes up and more. Plus, the system will still give you the option to confirm that you really want a document or folder deleted before proceeding so no accidental deletions will happen.
What can be improved
It can be tedious to set up all the rules because there are multiple sections that you go through to make sure everything is precise and will correctly organize your Mac folders. Also, when you have new files that don't match the criteria for existing rules, you'll have to continually create new rules to be applied. This can be a headache if you're a businesswoman that has many files that don't go together.
Conclusion
Apple has a variety of productivity apps for Mac, and these four are at the top of our list. As a busy business professional, we hope this list helps you find a productivity app that will meet all of your needs. We believe that these are the best apps that will increase your productivity and eliminate the stress of staying organized. You may also want to read and follow our guide on How to be more productive.
