Full transcript of “10 Must Have FREE Mac Apps 2025”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 This video is brought to you by Plot [Music] AI. You know, I recently realized that my last Mac apps episode was almost 2 years ago, so one might say it's about time. But instead of putting together a random run-of-the-mill list, I wanted to focus this episode on the freebies. those cool little apps that quietly add a ton of value to everyday life. Well, mostly freebies. There's one that costs less than parking for 10 minutes downtown, but the rest are completely free or more than worth using without paying. And I'm extra excited about this episode in particular because mixed in
0:45 with all those awesome finds, I'll be showing you an app that I actually created myself. And yes, you can grab it right away for free. and judge me later. The first app, the one that costs around a 10-minute parking in downtown, it actually costs $2. And honestly, it's absolutely worth it. So, you know how you can hit the space bar to preview an image or a file in Finder? Well, if you do the same, but with a folder, you just end up staring at a giant folder icon with no valuable information at all. The app in question is called Folder Preview, and as you can probably guess from the name, it fixes something Apple should have fixed years ago. It gives you a proper preview of a folder's contents. What's even better is
1:30 the preview of zip files, which is a huge timesaver in my opinion. Instead of unarchiving a zip, which if it's large, might take a minute or two, I can simply hit the space bar and glance at what's inside. Absolutely no-brainer of an app. By the way, all the apps will be linked chronologically in the description below. And second, by the way, if you end up enjoying this video, subscribe because why not? Just as useful as Folder Preview is an app I wish I knew existed years ago. You see, the Mac is famous for its inability to cut files properly when dealing with Finder. Well, technically cut does work, but in a very Apple kind of way. I copy a file with command C and instead of pasting with commandV, I move it or essentially cut
2:16 it with command plus option plus V. This is something that I actually talk about in my Mac OS option key tutorial, which I'll link at the end of this video. The solution here is a free app called Command X, and it does exactly what you expect. It cuts. It lives quietly in the menu bar. It has a nice little welcome message, and it can even trigger a cut sound to hint that the action has taken place. The only thing that it doesn't do is turn the cut file semi-transparent to indicate the action. But still, it's another absolute no-brainer of an app. Now, moving on to a more aesthetically pleasing app, but just as cool as the ones that I showed you so far. Allow me to introduce you to Umbra, made by a studio called Replay. Umbra does two things really well. It controls what wallpaper you're using at any given
3:01 moment, but more importantly, it lets you create a dark and light version of it. Here's how it works. If I open Umbra, which again lives quietly in the menu bar, I can pick a light version and a dark version of, let's say, my Drift 8K wallpaper pack. I simply drag the image into their respective places and voila. Since I usually stay in dark mode by default, I see the dark version of my Drift wallpaper. But if I toggle dark mode off, boom, everything lights up and my wallpaper automatically switches to the light version. And yes, if you have automatic appearance switching enabled in Mac OS, as long as Umbra is running, the wallpaper will change seamlessly, too. Now, whenever I trigger dark mode, I even have the option under preferences to dim the wallpaper to make it even
3:46 less distracting. While staying on the vibe of super useful and free apps, I have to mention Blip again, especially for those who haven't seen my previous iPhone and S25 Ultra episodes. Blip is a free transfer app that gives me an airdrop like experience but across pretty much all the popular platforms Windows, Mac, Android, and iPhone. Honestly, I have forgotten what AirDrop even feels like since I started using Blip. Here's how it works. I created an account and logged in with all my devices. Whether it's a laptop or a smartphone, it doesn't really matter. Since Blip lives in the menu bar, I can grab an image, for example, and drag it there to drop it to the device of my choice. Even better, since Blip works through email invites, I can blip files to my friends and family, even if they're far away and not even in the
4:32 same network. Got it. Whoever receives a Blip gets a notification on all active devices and simply chooses where to accept it. It works like a charm and I can even pause or resume uninterrupted transfer. Now, I always wanted to do a speed test between Blip and AirDrop. And for the purpose of this test, I'm going to share a 5 GBTE file from the MacBook to the Mac Mini first via Blip and then via AirDrop and then report on the result. So, I'll start with Blip. That should take probably one or two minutes. We'll see. And then I'll do the same I'll wait for this one to finish. And then I'll do the same with AirDrop. 1 minute and 5 seconds with
5:18 Blip. So airrop just lost. Boom. 1 minute and 10 seconds. Okay. So the results are in and they are very interesting. As you can see this is blip and this is airdrop. And the end time is pretty much neck and neck. Blip one by 5 seconds which is amazing. But keep in mind that all this is very much dependent on your internet speed and where you are because Blip relies on the Wi-Fi connection entirely while Airdrop uses different protocols and it creates I think its own network. So it can very much have the upper hand when it comes to you know if you have lower speeds at home. So you know how most apps handle
6:04 recording, transcribing, translating or summarizing separately? Well, there's an all-in-one solution for that, and it's called the Plot Node Pin. A wearable AI memory capsule that is universally compatible and easily accessible through the web. It captures, transcribes, summarizes, and analyzes recording in real time. With its secure cloud service, it handles 112 languages with crystal clear transcription, speaker labeling, and smart AIdriven summaries that turn chaotic meetings and ideas into clean, actionable notes. Its lightweight design offers four ways to wear it. Pin, clip, lanyard, or wristband, making it blend naturally into any lifestyle. I mostly use it when brainstorming while traveling, but it's just as perfect for meetings, lectures, and quick consults. It's loaded with 64 GB of storage, 20 hours of continuous recording, automatic mute detection, customizable summary templates, and cloud sync through the Plot app and web.
6:50 And because it's a dedicated device, it records instantly without the typical distraction of notifications or calls. You can think of it as a personal AI agent that is always ready to work. So, check out the plot null pin in the first link in the description below. Now, in my pursuit to clean my dock as much as possible, I stumbled upon an app that I had installed a long time ago and totally forgot about it. It's called Launchy, and I was actually contacted by the developer who asked me to check it out. No transactions later, and even in it free version, I can say I'm hooked. Launch is a simple and effective app launcher that can be triggered by a shortcut with the default being command plus option. Once triggered, a circle pops up right where the mouse cursor is ready to launch an app. This wheel launcher can of course be customized.
7:36 And for me, it holds all my creative apps I tend to start throughout the day. But in the settings, it can be set to hold whatever you like, even my currently active apps. Even in its free form, it's great for hiding unused apps and acts as a lightning fast app switcher. Next up is the free app that I actually created myself. Now, before I tell you more, I'm asking for a bit of forgiveness in the comments. Think of me as a toddler in the world of native Mac OS apps. Before I show it to you, here's why I built it mostly for myself. Despite using Notion for pretty much everything, I often find myself needing to launch the default Mac text edit app. Whether it's to quickly write something down or most often to paste some text and run a find and replace, you know,
8:21 sequence. Another common use for me is clearing text formatting, which in text edit takes quite a few steps that involve creating a new document, pasting the text, selecting it all, then going to the format, convert to plain text, and confirming. And I do this a lot weekly, especially when we're working on video descriptions, tags, and other stuff. Enter my super minimal text editor, which I called Why Note. Guess why? It does everything Text Edit does for me, but in a fraction of the time. Even find and replace looks way sleeker. This is by no means a perfect app, and I plan to polish it over time. But if you want to grab it for free and help me make it even better, head over to my newsletter and join the team. I'd love to hear your
9:06 feedback. And I think it could be a lot of fun gathering, you know, our opinions and building something together. The next app that I want to show you is pretty handy, too. So, you know how when you edit a document, you can just copy something and then paste it with all the formatting. Well, you can avoid that by using a very complex uh gymnastics of the shortcut which is shift command plus option plus v and then get rid of this. But not everybody wants to use all those complicated shortcuts. But some people like me prefer to always paste with formatting disabled. So enter the little app called Pure Paste. Pure Paste lives in the menu bar again and the only purpose of its existence is to paste
9:54 without formatting. So I can just copy this text which is the same document, paste it on an empty page with just commandV and boom, no formatting. I love this little app. And by the way, it is also free. On an equally useful note, Image Optim is a little app that, as you might guess, optimizes images. It does that by removing bloated metadata and compressing files without losing quality. Just like most of the apps in this video, it's another freebie that is absolutely worth adding to your arsenal because it's as simple as it gets. It offers just a few image adjustment settings like JPEG and PNG quality control and the amount of time you wanted to spend, you know, optimizing a batch. The rest is straightforward. Just
10:40 grab your images and drag them into the app. It overrides the existing files, which is something to keep in mind, but it does that in just seconds. And it can easily shrink a 40 megaby PNG down to 4 MGB without, you know, any noticeable visual difference. Pretty awesome. A similarly useful tool that I've been enjoying over the past year is Gifski. Gifsky. Gifski. Is it a GIF or GIF? That's a classic debate. The creator of the format pronounced it GIF like the peanut butter, but a lot of people say GIF with a hard G. Honestly, it's one of those things where you can pick whichever feels right to you and people will know what you mean. Okay. So, I call it GIF. Absolutely. GIF. It is. As long as you're consistent, it
11:26 works just fine. Gotcha. Thanks. Bye. Now, why would you want to do that? Well, here's my example. On my online store, I had been using simple photos for my products for ages. But then I thought, why not have simple animations for products that can offer more than just a static image? My Vision Deck iPhone widget is a great example of that. It grabs a lot more attention this way, and in a fraction of a second, it shows exactly what the product is about. The animation you see was created using GIFs key. I made the animation itself in a separate app, but remember this could be as simple as a screen recording for you. So, just grab your video file into GISK and optimize it however you like. Frame rate, quality, resolution, speed of the animation, and loop or bounce effects
12:13 are all adjustable. Just make sure to keep the final file size as small as possible for easy loading, especially if you're inserting it into something like a newsletter. Next up is usage. a lightweight system activity monitor that I actually use quite a lot. It's not overwhelming and instead of bombarding me with charts and graphs, it provides simple human friendly insights. How much memory is left, how busy the CPU is, and what's eating up the battery. I usually rely on it when I'm doing heavy exports, monitoring memory and processor workload, and keeping a constant eye on my laptop's internal storage. In fact, that's how I've customized my menu settings to appear as a simple storage monitor I can just glance at. The paid version, usage pro unlocks synchronized
12:58 access with other devices like my phone, giving me the ability to monitor everything from a single HQ, but I'm not using it. I'm sticking with the free option here. There are also tons of customization options and even widgets that you can drag straight into the desktop, like this battery charge widget, which is pretty cool in my opinion. If you enjoy this video, then you should definitely check out my get the most out of the Mac Mini guide right here, where besides cool apps like the Only Switch, I also go over some awesome accessories and peripherals. Like and subscribe to the channel, as well as my newsletter, and as always, it's been an absolute pleasure. This is Z. Over and out.
