IZip is a simple to use, the efficient and powerful utility built for Mac with compression and encryption technology. IZip allows you to zip, unzip, secure and share your files. The utility RemoveSymantecMacFiles removes all files within Symantec-installed folders, even those you may have created yourself. On the Terminal menu, click Quit Terminal. SymantecRemovalTool (SymantecRemovalTool.zip) is a modification to RemoveSymantecMacFiles, designed to be pushed out using customer's choice of remote deployment tool.
Whether you are a new Mac user or seasoned veteran looking to do more, here’s a collection of essential Mac apps & utilities that you must download on your computer. These apps, most of them are free and created by third-party developers, will help you get more productive and do things that are otherwise not possible on your Mac.
The Best Mac Apps & Utilities
The Mac collection includes mostly lesser-known apps so the usual suspects likes Evernote, Dropbox, OneNote, or Google Drive are all missing from the list. Also, all the apps listed below are compatible with Yosemite, the current version of Mac OS.
Let’s get started.
- Infinit.io – Easily send files and folders of any size from your Mac to another device be it a Windows PC, iPhone, iPad, Android phone or a Mac itself.
- Spectacle – This is a useful windows management app for Mac that lets you move and resize windows with configurable keyboard shortcuts. You can also move windows between multiple displays too.
- Duet Display – Use your iPad or iPhone as an extra display for your Mac. Connect the iOS device to the Mac with the USB cable and use the touch-screen to interact with your Mac apps.
- Knock – You can unlock your Mac by simply tapping your iPhone screen or your Apple Watch without having to type any passwords.
- ImageOptim – Always run your images through ImageOptim before upload them on to your website. The Mac app will crush the size of your image files without affecting the visual quality.
- HiddenMe – If your Mac desktop is cluttered with folders and files, you can hide all the icons with a single click or with a keyboard shortcut.
- Site Sucker – Download entire websites includes images, PDF files and mirror them on your local disk for offline browsing. Like wget but with a visual interface.
- App Cleaner – Deleting the .dmg file is not enough. If you are to properly uninstall any Mac app, you need to delete the residual hidden files as well and that’s where App Cleaner can help.
- Download Shuttle – A download manager for your Mac that splits the file into multiple parts and downloads the individual parts simultaneously for faster downloads. Can pause and resume downloads too.
- Toggl – Time tracking software for your Mac that sits in the status bar for quick access. Add #hashtags to tasks and your tracked hours are also synched with the web.
- Fluid – This will turn your favorite website into a real desktop app for Mac that will reside in the Applications folder and you can launch from Spotlight search.
- Transmit – The perfect FTP client for Mac OS X that just works. You can create droplets to instantly upload files to your favorite destinations from anywhere.
- Caffeine – It helps your Mac stay awake. Click the Caffeine icon in the menu bar to prevent your Mac from automatically going to sleep or from dimming the screen while you are watching videos.
- NoSleep – Your Macbook goes to sleep as soon you close the lid. The NoSleep extension will keep the screen awake even when the lid is closed so you can continue downloading files over the network.
- Air Browser – This will put your favorite websites in the menu bar so you can access them from any screen with a single click. The sites can be configured to auto-refresh on open.
- MacDropAny – You can easily sync any Mac folder with Dropbox or Google Drive without having to move them to a common folder.
- Self Control – Stop procrastinating. This open-source Mac app that will temporarily block access to time-wasting websites, emails and everything else that you find distracting.
- Gas Mask – This is a hosts file editor for Mac that can help you permanently block access to certain websites from your computer.
- Authy – Not exactly a Mac app but a Google Chrome extension that you cannot do without. It lets you log into online accounts that require 2-factor authentication without requiring the phone.
- Pixel Winch – An easy-to-use screen measurement app where you take a screenshot of an area and then use the built-in controls to measure the dimensions of any element inside no matter how tiny it is.
- Buffer – You can easily publish status updates, share links and photos to multiple social websites in one go from the menu bar itself.
- Hocus Focus – It helps keep your Mac desktop screen clutter free by automatically hiding app windows that are inactive or haven’t been used for a while. You can even choose to hide windows as soon as they lose focus.
- AirDroid – It connects your Android phone to the Mac. You can access messages, manage photos, transfer files and more, wirelessly.
- PushBullet – A universal copy-paste solution for all your devices including the Mac. Copy something on your phone and it instantly becomes available on the Mac’s clipboard and vice-versa.
- Unarchiver – A useful compression utility for Mac that can handle all the popular zip formats including RAR, TAR, MSI, EXE, GZIP and even ISO file. It can extract sounds and images from Flash and PDF files too.
- iBrowse – Access the files and folders on your iPhone or iPad inside this Finder-like app and copy images, videos and other files from the iOS device to your Mac easily.
- GIF Brewery – This helps you convert video files and screencasts into animated GIFs and offers tons of options to fine-tune your GIF images.
- Karabiner – A key mapping application for the Mac that lets you remap existing keys to perform a different command. For instance, the CAPS lock key can be configured to work as an Escape key.
- Better Touch Tool – It lets you easily configure the behaviour of existing gestures of your Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad or define new multi-touch gestures.
- Hazel – A folder monitoring app that lets you specify rules and the files added to these watched folders are automatically arranged based on your rules. You can run complex rules too, like run Apple Script, when a file is added.
- Helium – An Always on Top like app but for your Mac. The browser window will float on top of other windows and you can also change the translucency level.
- Dropzone – It make it easy to copy or move files to your favorite folders and you can also upload files to web destinations right from the menu bar.
- RSS Bot – Access your favorite RSS feeds from the Mac’s menu bar. Get notifications when new items are available and apply filters to only show articles that match certain keywords.
- XMenu – It provides Finder like access to your favorite folders and Mac apps from the menu bar. You can launch apps, access documents and files inside folder right from the menu bar.
- Flux – It automatically dims the brightness of your screen based on the time of the day – warm at night, bright during the day – so your eyes feel less strain. Also see the 20 20 20 rule.
- EVE – The app helps you learn Mac keyboard shortcuts. Every time you use the mouse to perform an action, the app displaying the equivalent shortcut as a notification. Also see CheatSheet, it display all the available shortcuts for the currently active app.
- BootChamp – If you have installed Windows on Mac through Apple Bootcamp, BootChamp will save you a few clicks. It adds an icon in the menu bar that will you restart your computer into Windows mode directly without having to press any keys during start-up.
- aText – A text expander program that accelerates your touch typing by replacing pre-defined abbreviations with corresponding phrases. For instance, say ;sig to add your rich signature in the Gmail window.
- Flashlight – It adds more power to Spotlight search on your Mac. You can search different, quickly add events to your calendar, create reminders, run terminal commands and more all from within Spotlight.
- Alfred 2 – Apple has vastly improved Spotlight with Yosemite but Alfred is still a better app at finding files both on your local disk and online.
- Disk Inventory – If your 256 GB SSD on the Macbook is running low on space, use the Disk Inventory app to quickly discover large files and folders that are hogging up the space.
- Sync – From the makers of BitTorrent, Sync helps you keep files and folders on all your computers and mobile devices in sync with each other but without using the cloud. There are no size limitations either.
- Bartender – If you have too many app icons cluttering the menu bar of your mac, Bartender can bring some order. It lets you hide the menu item you don’t need or you can push them to the secondary bar that will not show by default.
- CloudUp – From the company that develops WordPress, CloudUp lets you quickly upload and share local files and screenshots from the menu bar.
- Filepane – The invisible app improves your drag and drop workflow. Select one or more files and the app will offers a list of actions that you can perform from resizing the files to sharing via AirDrop to moving it to another destination and more.
- Unclutter – A clipboard history manager for your Mac that preserves snippets copied to the clipboard and also gives you quick access to your frequently used files and folders. Use ClipMenu or CopyClip if you only need a basic clipboard manager.
- TextBar – You can specify terminal commands and the app will add the text output of those commands to the menu bar that can also be configured to auto-updated at set intervals. For instance, ‘ipconfig getifaddr en0’ will print your current IP address in the menu bar. You can also have these as desktop widgets with Übersicht.
- Handbrake – Whether you are looking to convert videos from one format to another or need to extract videos from a DVD, HandBrake is probably the only utility you need. FFmpeg is powerful too but works only from the command line.
- Soundflower – If you are to record the Mac audio, like the sound coming out of the speakers, you would need SoundFlower to route that sound to the recording app instead of the speakers.
- QuickCast – Record quick screencasts of any area of your desktop screen and save the video files locally or publish them online. It can record mouse clicks and sound too. The other alternative is QuickTime.
- MuteMyMic – Like the speaker volume, you can now reduce the volume or completely turn off the mic from the menu bar or through keyboard shortcuts. Should come handy for online meetings and voice chats.
- Onyx – It provides access to hidden settings, you can perform system maintenance tasks and also configure system apps like Finder, Spotlight and Dock. TinkerTool is also a good alternative.
Also see: Print Files on Mac with Dropbox
Also see: Clean your Mac Open-with Menu
Also see: The Most Useful Web Apps
Wherever possible, I have included the Apps Store links because the store not only make it easy for you to install apps on your Mac but, in the case of paid apps, you also have an option for requesting refunds.
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So you tried to open a .rar file you downloaded on the Internet, or received from a colleague/friend via email. Then you get a weird error on your Mac, because the file couldn’t be opened.
It’s really disappointing. I’ve been there many times, since I use my MacBook Pro to communicate with others who are probably on a PC. In fact, I also ran into the same problem when I switched from PC to Mac a few years ago.
Luckily, I managed to fix it with an amazing app called The Unarchiver, the best RAR extractor app for Mac. Plus, it’s still free. Meanwhile, I also tested dozens of other applications on my Mac, and filtered those that are 100% free and easy to use and you can read more below.
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NEW UPDATE
Hi there, Thanks for reading this article. It’s been two years since I first published this post. Things have changed a lot when it comes to unrar apps for Mac. I was hoping Apple macOS could add this feature to its built-in Archive Utility app, unfortunately, it seems that Apple macOS team doesn’t plan to do this. My MacBook Pro is now with the latest 10.13 High Sierra, and I have to rely on third-party apps to extract RAR files.
As for the best rar extractor app for Mac, the recommendation stays the same — The Unarchiver. It’s still free to download and use. However, it’s worth noting that the app has been acquired by MacPaw (the maker of CleanMyMac, an awesome Mac cleaning app) and is now part of the MacPaw family. You can read more from this press release.
Also, I just found a more powerful app called BetterZip 4 — which allows Mac users to not only extract many types of archives, but you can also use it to create archives or preview content of an archive without extracting. Those additional features are not available in The Unarchiver or Archive Utility. I recommend BetterZip to those of you who often need to handle a different kind of files on a PC and Mac. Note: BetterZip isn’t freeware ($24.95 for the paid version), but a free trial is offered. You can get BetterZip 4 from Setapp here.
What about the other apps listed below? I tried to check them now and then, just to make sure they’re usable and the information is accurate. But I find it so time-consuming because every year or so Apple releases a new version of macOS (to date, it’s High Sierra 10.13.2), those apps that fail to be updated often can’t run or malfunction. Therefore, I’d discourage you to check them out unless you are interested. That said, I’ll try my best to keep the content on this post as fresh as possible.
What is an RAR File?
RAR is a compressed file short for Roshal Archive; it’s a proprietary file format developed by Eugene Roshal, a genius software engineer. Simply put, a .rar file is like a big data container that holds a set of individual files and folders inside.
Why use RAR? Because it reduces the size of your files and folders while keeping all the content 100% intact. With a RAR, it’s much easier to store on removable media or transferred over the Internet.
According to this comparison image provided by Compression Ratings, RAR files achieve much higher compression, especially on multimedia files. They are also easier to split or to recover once corrupted than other alternatives like ZIP or 7Zip files.
How to Open an RAR Archive on Mac?
Unlike other archive files, for example, a ZIP archive can be directly created or extracted by using the default function on Mac (here’s a tutorial), a RAR file can only be opened using third-party software…which, unfortunately, Apple hasn’t built into the Archive Utility, yet.
That’s why there are plenty of third-party applications available on the Internet that claim to be able to do that. Some are dated, while some require you to pay.
Thanks to those smart, yet kind developers, we have quite a lot of free options to get the job done without taking a penny out of the pocket. I’ve tested many and here are the 10 best free apps that still work.
10 Free RAR Extractor Apps That Work on Mac
Note: Some of the apps below are open source, and the authors accept donations. If you find the one you use is really awesome, kindly show your appreciation. Hundreds of hours were spent to make that product work well.
1. The Unarchiver
The Unarchiver is my favorite. Calibri font for macbook. Like the name indicates, it unpacks almost any archive instantly without launching the app. The app is very powerful, even does what the built-in Archive Utility can’t — extracts RAR archives. It also supports handling filenames in foreign character sets.
2. B1 Free Archiever
Another great open source app, the B1 Free Archiver serves as an all-in-one program for managing file archives. As you can see from the screenshot above, this tool allows you to create, open and extract archives. It opens .rar, .zip, and 35 other file formats. Besides Mac, there are also versions for Windows, Linux, and Android.
3. UnRarX
UnRarX is a simple utility designed to expand .rar files and restore corrupted or missing archives with .par and .par2 files. It has an extraction function as well. To do this, simply open the program, drag your archive files into the interface, and UnRarX will unpack the content to the specified destination.
Zip App For Macbook
4. StuffIt Expander Mac
StuffIt Expander for Mac allows you to uncompress both Zip and RAR archives. I found the app very easy to use. Once the program is installed, you should see an icon (as shown on the top of the above screenshot). Click on it. Next select the file, specify the destination to store your extracted files, and you’re done.
5. MacPar deLuxe
Another great tool that can open RAR files, and do a lot beyond! Originally developed to recover missing or corrupted information by processing “par” and “par2” files, MacPAR deLuxe is able to unpack the data with its built-in unrar engine. If you are a Macintosh user who frequently downloads or uploads binary files, then most likely you’ll love this utility program. You can get it from its official site here.
6. iZip for Mac
iZip is another powerful yet effective tool built from the ground up for Mac users to compress/decompress, secure, and share files easily. It supports all kinds of archive formats including RAR, ZIP, ZIPX, TAR, and 7ZIP. To unzip a file, just drag and drop it into the software main interface. Another window will pop up with the extracted files. Super fast!
7. RAR Extractor Free
RAR Extractor Free is an app that specializes in extracting Rar, Zip, Tar, 7-zip, Gzip, Bzip2 files conveniently and safely. Once you download and launch the app, you’ll see a pop-up window that asks you to specify an “unarchive” location. To load your files, you’ll need to move to the top left and click “Open.”
8. SimplyRAR (Mac)
SimplyRAR is another awesome archiving app for Mac OS. As its name suggests, SimplyRAR is a simple to use program that makes archiving and unarchiving files a breeze. Open it by dropping the file into the application, choosing a compression method, and pulling the trigger. The downside of the app is that it will be difficult to get support from the developer, as it appears they’re no longer in business.
9. RAR Expander
RAR Expander (Mac) is a clean GUI utility for creating and expanding RAR archives. It supports single, multi-part or password-protected archives. It also features AppleScript support and includes example scripts to help you handle multiple archives at once.
10. Zipeg
Zipeg is also handy yet free. What I really like is its ability to preview an entire file before extracting it. It also supports password protected and multipart files. Note: To open the software, you’ll need to install the legacy Java SE 6 runtime (see this Apple support article).
What’s Your Favorite UnRAR Tool?
Does the recommended one help you extract or unzip your RAR files? Or do you find a better unarchiver app for Mac than the ones listed above? Let me know by leaving a quick comment below.