5 Essential MacBook Apps You Should Be Using In 2025

The apps you install on your MacBook can define your everyday experience and productivity. With so many choices on the App Store, it can be overwhelming to truly know which ones are worth having. That’s why in this guide, we’ve rounded up five essential apps that will help elevate your MacBook experience. Whether you’re new to macOS or an experienced power user, we’ve picked apps that go beyond the basics to offer something unique yet useful. 

Moreover, most of them are totally free, while some include affordable paid subscriptions. From clever little tools that simplify how you share files or manage your clipboard to immersive apps that help you focus and get more done, these recommendations are designed to make your Mac work smarter — and feel more personal. Each app serves a distinct purpose but shares one thing in common: it makes your daily digital life smoother, faster, and more enjoyable, making it truly worth your time (and storage space).

True to its name, the Hand Mirror app on Mac acts as a quick preview of your video before you jump onto calls or meetings. So, you can adjust the lighting or your hair if you need to. This may seem relatively simple, but it can improve your video calls by helping you look your best if you’re often taking meetings on your Mac. Once installed, it lives in your Mac’s menu bar, so just one click gives you a live view from your webcam. That means you can check your appearance, background, and lighting before logging onto a video conference. It has earned an impressive 4.9/5 rating on the Mac App Store from over 10.6K user ratings.

A big win is that it does not record or transmit data, so there are no privacy concerns. Moreover, it’s absolutely free, though you can upgrade to Hand Mirror Plus (via a one-time purchase of $5.99) to unlock extra features like mic checks, a resizable “smart window,” and custom window positions. As several user reviews point out, this is the kind of utility that you don’t know you need until you use it, especially if you’re someone who often makes calls, streams video, or records tutorials from your Mac.

We could all probably do with some more zen in our lives. Installing the Portal app on your MacBook is a great step towards achieving this. It blends ultra high-definition motion visuals, immersive spatial audio, and smart lighting to turn your desktop into a peaceful natural escape. Think wandering into a remote forest in Costa Rica, relaxing along a spectacular coastline in Iceland, or waking up with a sunrise over Lake Bled in Slovenia. The app offers over a hundred such serene nature scapes that you can tune into with the aim of cultivating some calm or focus throughout your day. Simply choose what you’re in the mood for and click the “Play Portal” button to experience synchronized sounds and visuals that’ll soothe your mind. It can be quite refreshing for anyone who spends a lot of time at their desk.

One of its coolest recent features is Circadian Flow, which allows Portal to match the lighting and ambience throughout the day to mirror natural rhythms, helping sync your internal clock to nature’s tempo. The app has earned an Editor’s Choice recognition on the App Store, as well as a rating of 4.8/5 from over 2.1K user reviews. You get free access to 3 portals, refreshed monthly. To unlock more portals, you can get a monthly subscription for $12.99 or an annual one for $69.99.

While it’s super easy to share files between your MacBook and other Apple devices like your iPhone and iPad through AirDrop, things get a bit tricky if you want to share to other devices such as an Android phone. LocalSend is a nifty app that fixes this pain point. It works over your local network, peer-to-peer, so no need for external servers or the Internet just to move files between nearby devices.

It’s free, open-source, and cross-platform (macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android), which is why we’ve included it in our roundup of essential Android apps too. Using LocalSend is simple: open the app on both devices (on the same WiFi/LAN), pick a file (or folder), and send it. The recipient gets a prompt to accept. You can also share text snippets, and the interface is minimal, so you don’t get lost in settings. Moreover, it uses end-to-end encryption to keep your data secure during transfers. 

The HEIC Converter app is a must-have if you often handle photos from your iPhone on your Mac. You’ve probably noticed that iPhones by default store images in the HEIC image format, which saves space with clever compression. It’s great for file size, but not always ideal when sharing or using images across platforms. That’s where HEIC Converter steps in to quickly convert your images into JPEG or PNG formats without needing other websites or tools.

The user-friendly interface really makes it stand out. You can simply drag and drop HEIC files onto the app, use the “Open With” menu in Finder, or choose via the File menu. You can select the JPEG quality you need, and it preserves the image’s metadata (EXIF data) so that your location, camera settings, and more stay intact. Best of all, it’s completely free to use and has earned an impressive 4.9/5 rating from over 5,000 users.

The recent Spotlight upgrade in macOS Tahoe added much-needed native clipboard history to Macs. But it’s still not quite as powerful as it could be. That’s why Paste is an essential MacBook app if you want complete control over everything you copy — text, links, images, and even files — so that nothing ever gets lost. 

When you open Paste (using a hotkey or by clicking on its menu-bar icon), you’ll see a visual timeline of your copy history. You can scroll or search through past items, pick one, and paste it back. You can also pin your frequently used items so they stay handy instead of buried in history. iCloud sync ensures that you can access your copied items on your other Apple devices too. 

Another great feature is the ability to set rules that exclude certain types of copied data, such as passwords, so that you can maintain privacy and security. Moreover, you can also use Paste to collaborate with others through “shared pinboards.” This means you can share collections of clips without giving full access to your entire clipboard. Paste is available as an affordable subscription of just $3.99 monthly or $29.99 yearly. It includes a free trial to allow you to test it before paying.