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Five Interesting Mac Apps Worth Checking Out - August 2018

Monday August 27, 2018 2:46 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apps created for the Mac don't receive as much attention as apps made for iOS devices, so we have a bi-monthly series here at MacRumors that's designed to highlight useful and interesting Mac apps that are worth checking out and potentially investing in.

This week's picks include apps for streamlining your email, focusing on tasks, checking the weather, cleaning up your Mac, and managing all of your messaging services. Many of our highlighted apps this week were chosen by MacRumors forum members.

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  • Focus (Free with in-app purchases) - Focus is a time management app and monitoring service that's designed to help you keep track of your time so you can stay on task. It encourages users to work in focus sessions, which are 25 minute blocks of time for working accompanied by a 15 to 20 minute break. There's an included task manager so you can stay on top of tasks, along with detailed statistics so you can see how you've spent your day. Focus is free to download, but it costs $4.99 per month or $39.99 for year to use across all of your devices.


  • Carrot Weather ($11.99) - Carrot Weather is a well-known weather app that delivers weather information with a little bit of attitude to make checking outdoor conditions more fun. It has different dialogue and graphics for various weather conditions, and what comes up is always a surprise. Carrot Weather uses data from Dark Sky so it's super accurate and it offers up tons of data like 7-day forecasts, rain and snow predictions, weather maps, and a time machine so you can see past weather conditions.


  • Dr. Cleaner (Free) - Dr. Cleaner from TrendMicro is an app that offers a Disk Clean Map so you can see what's taking up space on your Mac, a memory cleanup feature for freeing up memory, a scanner for large files, and a junk file cleaner that's designed to get rid of temporary files, trash, and other unwanted items taking up disk space. Dr. Cleaner is free from the Mac App Store, but there is a $19.99 Pro version that finds and eliminates duplicate files, shreds deleted files, and uninstalls apps.


  • Canary Mail ($19.99) - Those who previously used the now-eliminated Newton Mail might be looking for a new mail app, and Canary could fit the bill. Canary Mail offers one-click encryption, natural language search, smart filters, read notifications, snooze options, email templates, one-click unsubscribe, and more.


  • All-in-One Messenger (Free) - This is technically a Chrome extension rather than a Mac app, so it's limited to Chrome users. All-in-One Messenger is designed to combine all of your chat and messenger services into one convenient web app so you can keep up with all of your chats in a single spot. It works with a wide range of messaging apps, like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Google Hangouts, and more.
If you have a favorite must-have Mac app that we haven't highlighted yet, let us know in the comments, and we might feature it in a future video. Many of this month's app picks came directly from recommendations from our forum members, and it's these recommendations that have helped make this series useful.

For more of our Mac app picks, make sure to check out our Mac app archives.

Tag: Essential Mac Apps
[ 86 comments ]

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keysofanxiety
15 months ago
Not sure about Dr. Cleaner, MR. Memory clean (purge) applications don’t have any benefit and messes up macOS’s already great memory management. If lots of RAM is being used that’s good for system performance unless it’s paging to disk. Free RAM is wasted RAM.

If anything I’d be advising readers against using those sort of apps.

If you just want an app that shows what’s taking up space I’d recommend OmniDiskSweeper.
Rating: 16 Votes
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Elijen
15 months ago
Pretty terrible list this time. Every single app has a much better free alternative.
Rating: 9 Votes
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bjoswald
15 months ago
I wouldn't touch memory/disk cleaners or "optimizers" with a 10-foot pole.
Rating: 5 Votes
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MSalemHawks
15 months ago

You can use Dr. Cleaner for RAM too.

I’m curious: why is freeing up RAM a bad thing in the MacOS? I’m not familiar with how the management system works.


These types of apps are borderline malware. The Mac OS does all the cleaning needed. If you feel there is a memory problem, just restart your computer. I get paid to uninstall this type of app because of the problems they cause on my clients Mac's. They are not as bad as full blown malware or ransomware and they are NOT needed.

Former Apple employee, independent Mac Consultant for over 25 years and a Mac owner since they came out in 1984
Rating: 4 Votes
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Tech198
15 months ago
I vote for Canary Mail... also for the easy encryption, plus i like little furry birds :)

Rating: 3 Votes
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maflynn
15 months ago

Please recommend a good free app that show temperatures and fans on the MacBook next...

Not free but quite cheap - iStat Menus. Its probably the best out there. For free (but no fans) is Intels Power Gadget.
Rating: 3 Votes
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kuwxman
15 months ago
Carrot Weather doesn't use 'Dark Sky' for its weather; it uses the same forecast.io API that Dark Sky uses. Which, as I've stated before, isn't as good as people want to make it seem. Apps that use the forecast.io service simply have pretty graphics going for them. That's it.
Rating: 3 Votes
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BigMcGuire
15 months ago


If you have a favorite must-have Mac app that we haven't highlighted yet, let us know in the comments, and we might feature it in a future video. Many of this month's app picks came directly from recommendations from our forum members, and it's these recommendations that have helped make this series useful.


Not sure if they've been covered yet but, iAWriter, Day One, BetterTouchTool, SwitchResX, coconutBattery, Arq, Carbon Copy Cloner, iTerm, iStat Menus ---- those are my favorite Mac Apps. :p
Rating: 3 Votes
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Weaselboy
15 months ago

I’m a farmer and needless to say I check the weather multiple times a day. You seem to have an idea about weather apps. Which do find the most accurate? I previously used wunderground but they seem to have changed something and the forecasts don’t seem to be as good as they used to be.


https://www.forecastadvisor.com

Go here and enter your zip code to see what provider has the most accurate weather in your area. Then find an app you like that uses that provider. forecast.io is consistently low on that list where I live.
Rating: 2 Votes
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Garage Battle
15 months ago
Carrot Weather is not worth the money on the Mac. Its been nearly a year since updated 1.3.1 and its missing the overhaul that the iOS app received. Save your money for a new edition.
Rating: 2 Votes

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