OP for the love all man kind, don't listen to a single person here telling you to install these silly utility tools that make a Mac run more like Windows. Don't get Alfred, or Bartender or apps that give you the "Windows" experience of split screens. It's all nonsense. Your Mac does everything those apps do. You really should take the time and discover what it does instead of instantly installing a lot of BS. Then you'll see why Apple puts so much time into the Mac and MacOS. You'd be surprised everything it's capable of.

The Mac comes with a very good office suite but if you need MS Office then get that. It also has a very good photo editing suit but if you need something more get Pixelmator or PS. If you need to do video editing it does include iMovie but if you need more then install Apple's Final Cut Pro X or Adobe Premiere.

If you want the best adblocker then get WIPR. It's ~$2 USD and it's absolutely the most powerful. It can't get everything but it's better than the other free ones.

I recommend not installing anything unless you need it, especially window management and customization tools. I like MacOS because it's simple and clean. Use it for a few weeks, get the hang of it and only then, if you need it, install utilities.

Plus how can we recommend anything if we don't know what you need and what you like? What a weird request.

iina video player

Arc is a very good browser I use it personally

CleanMyMac

My app count is pretty stock. Only 3rd party I have installed is Microsoft RDP for connecting to an xps and that’s about it.

AppleCare

I used to work by connecting MacBook to the big screen smart TV. And wear special glasses to keep your eyes healthy

Office 365

Daisy disk saved my laptop from being thrown against the wall, so there’s that.

Also rectangle. Love it.

My personal essentials:

Wipr - simple adblock for Safari (MacOS/iOS)

AlDente - useful if you’re keeping your Mac under charger for a longer time. MacOS has very similar feature build in but it may not work if you’re randomly plugging in and out your charger.

Rectangle - free tool for very quick windows management, snapping etc.

Keka - great software for compressing and decompressing .rar files and other compressed formats.

OnyX - great free software for performing overall maintenance in your system

AppCleaner - uninstall programs and delete leftover files

FlipClock - basic screen saver with a clock

Amphetamine - keeping your Mac awake, useful for longer tasks when doing them overnight etc.

wow five years with my macbook and i’ve never used any of these lmao

What’s your use case? General internet? Dev? Graphics? Writing?

Parallel - Lets you have Windows

Daisy disk, parallels, fermatta, Alfred, istats, pixelmator pro (I like it better than photoshop)

Pasta is a great clipboard manager.

Caffeine is a great little tool that prevents your laptop from going to sleep when needed.

Give this video a watch, I agree with many of the settings Quinn changes.

Enjoy your new computer!

Epic! What processor and specs specifically? :3

Arc browser!!

Move the dock to the left thank. Me. Later

Parallels, Mac’s fan control, rectangle, lickable menu bar, utm, and iWork

dropzone

Malwarebytes, free antivirus software that works good

Hey, new mac user here too. Do you feel any shutter, lag, or frame drop occasionally while opening and minimizing apps?

Magnet - allows you to snap windows to designated areas on the screen

Aldente - allows you to set a charge limit when your laptop is plugged in

Bartender, BetterTouchTool. Consider getting SetApp, if you need any help getting set up with that PM me.

• Reeder (RSS)
• Affinity suite (Adobe alternative)
• Ivory (Mastodon client)
• Homebrew (package manager)
• OpenEmu (Emulation platform)
• Voyager as a PWA (Lemmy app)
• CotEditor (Nice lightweight text editor)
• Infuse (Native front end to plex/jellyfin or just SMB)
• IINA (like VLC but a much nicer native interface)
• Transmission (bit torrent)

There are others but these will the most applicable to most people.

Cinch, or magnet

Parallels Desktop, Finalcut, etc.

That wallpaper's hideous

Raycast, what I like about it is the clipboard manager, and set it hotkey to `Opt + V` just like `Win + V` to retain my Windows habit 🤣

Office 365 and Adobe Acrobat are a must if you use it for school or office work