Blog · Roundup · 27 October 2026

The best free Mac apps: 12 small utilities

Twelve free utilities that fix small, everyday Mac annoyances. Most are open source, all are free to use, and none of them nag.

Disclosure: I make Mission Boost, which is paid and listed only at the end. Nobody paid to be here and there are no affiliate links. I checked each price and macOS requirement on the maker's own site in October 2026. Prices change and sales come and go, so check before you buy.

At a glance

App	What it does	Open source
Raycast	Launcher, clipboard history, window commands	No
Rectangle	Snap windows with shortcuts	Yes
AltTab	Switch between windows, not apps	Yes
Thaw / Ice	Tidy the menu bar	Yes
Maccy	Clipboard history	Yes
Stats	CPU, memory, network in the menu bar	Yes
MonitorControl	Brightness for external displays	Yes
Amphetamine	Keep the Mac awake	No
AppCleaner	Uninstall apps and their leftovers	No
Keka	Make and open archives	Yes
IINA	Play any video	Yes
LuLu	Firewall for outgoing connections	Yes

Launching and windows

Raycast

Free; Raycast Pro is $10 a month or $96 a year

A faster Spotlight that does far more: launch apps, search files, run calculations, keep snippets, and browse clipboard history (three months on the free plan). It also has window commands and thousands of extensions. The free plan is generous; Pro adds AI, sync and unlimited history.

Rectangle

Free and open source · macOS 14 or later

Keyboard shortcuts and drag-to-snap for halves, thirds and quarters. macOS now has basic tiling built in, but Rectangle has more sizes and remappable keys. More options in my window manager roundup.

AltTab

Free and open source; Pro is optional · macOS 12 or later

⌘Tab switches between apps. AltTab switches between windows, with previews, including minimized ones and those on other Spaces.

Menu bar

Thaw (or Ice)

Free and open source (GPL-3.0) · Thaw needs macOS 26 or later; Ice supports macOS 14 or later

A crowded menu bar hides icons behind the notch. These hide the ones you rarely need behind a click, with an optional second bar below the menu bar and a search. Thaw is an actively developed fork of Ice; on a Mac older than macOS 26, use Ice. If you prefer a paid, supported option, Bartender is the long-standing one.

Maccy

Free and open source (MIT) · macOS 14 or later

A small clipboard manager: press a shortcut, type to search everything you copied, press Return. Get it from maccy.app or Homebrew; its README warns about look-alike sites that ship malware.

Stats

Free and open source (MIT) · macOS 12 or later

CPU, GPU, memory, disk, network, battery and temperature in the menu bar, each as its own small widget you can turn on or off.

MonitorControl

Free and open source (MIT)

Makes the brightness and volume keys work on external displays, with the native on-screen indicator. On macOS 27 you need version 4.4.0 or newer.

Amphetamine

Free on the Mac App Store

Keeps your Mac awake for a set time, while an app is running, or while a download finishes. Handy for long exports and presentations.

Files and media

AppCleaner

Free · version 3.7 needs macOS 15 or later; older versions are on the site

Dragging an app to the Trash leaves its settings and caches behind. Drop the app on AppCleaner instead and it finds the related files too, so you can delete them together.

Keka

Free from the website; the Mac App Store version is paid and supports the developer

Creates 7z, zip, tar and a dozen more formats, opens over thirty, including RAR, and can split or password-protect archives.

IINA

Free and open source (GPLv3) · macOS 12 or later

A modern video player built on mpv that plays just about any file, with a Mac-like design, picture in picture and no tracking.

Privacy

LuLu

Free and open source · macOS 10.15 or later

A firewall from Objective-See that asks before any app makes a new outgoing connection, so you can allow or block it. It's the free counterpart to Little Snitch.

Install the lot with Homebrew

If you use Homebrew, this installs most of the list in one go:

brew install --cask raycast rectangle alt-tab maccy stats keka iina appcleaner lulu

Four paid apps worth the money

CleanShot X: screenshots and screen recordings with annotation. $35 once for the app and a year of updates, or in Setapp.
Moom: saved window layouts for multi-display setups. $15 once.
SoundSource: per-app volume, routing and effects. Paid, with a trial.
Mission Boost (my app): close, minimize and arrange windows right inside Mission Control. €9 once, with a 14-day trial.

More roundups

Questions

Are free Mac apps safe to install?

The apps here are well known and open source or sold through the Mac App Store. Download from the developer's own site, the Mac App Store or Homebrew, never from a look-alike download site, and check that macOS opens the app without a warning about an unidentified developer.

Do I need Homebrew to install these apps?

No. Every app has a normal download. Homebrew just makes installing and updating many apps at once quicker.

What is the best free alternative to Bartender?

Thaw on macOS 26 or later, or Ice on older versions. Both are free and open source and hide menu bar icons behind a click.

OOndřej Romancov · engineer, Prague