51 Free and Open-source Utilities Apps for macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon)
1- 7-Zip
a file archiver with a high compression ratio.
7-Zip is free software with open source. The most of the code is under the GNU LGPL license. Some parts of the code are under the BSD 3-clause License. Also there is unRAR license restriction for some parts of the code. Read 7-Zip License information.
Read about 7-Zip 's features, license, platforms, and more.
2- Browserosaurus
The browser prompter for macOS
Browserosaurus is an open-source (GPLv3 license), browser prompter for macOS. It works by setting itself as the default browser; any clicked links in non-browser apps are now sent to Browserosaurus where you are presented with a menu of all your installed browsers. You may now decide which app you’d like to continue opening the link with.
Read about Browserosaurus 's features, license, platforms, and more.
3- Dangerzone (Convert Dangerous PDF files into Safe PDF files)
Take potentially dangerous PDFs, office documents, or images and convert them to safe PDFs.
Dangerzone empowers you to transform potentially harmful PDFs, office documents, and images into secure PDFs across Windows, Linux, and macOS platforms.
It boasts the ability to convert various file formats into PDF, including but not limited to MS Docs, Excel files, PowerPoint files, Open Document Format files for documents (Text: ODT), ODS, ODG, and ODP. Additionally, it allows you to effortlessly convert images into PDF files.
4- Alchemy
Free PDF File Converter App
Alchemy is an impressive, open-source file converter built on the reliable Electron and React. It offers a variety of operations, including the ability to merge files into a PDF. Its features include an elegantly simple, drag-and-drop interface for converting and merging files, as well as the option to merge multiple images into a single PDF, with the added benefit of being able to change the file order.
Additionally, it allows for batch conversion of multiple files to various file types, making it a versatile tool for any user's needs.
Read about Alchemy 's features, license, platforms, and more.
5- Amethyst
Automatic tiling window manager for macOS à la xmonad.
Amethyst is a free open-source app that enables macOS control their app windows sizes, locations, layouts, and spaces. It has dozens of pre-build shortcuts, and several different layouts.
Read about Amethyst 's features, license, platforms, and more.
6- appgrid
macOS window manager with Vim–like hotkeys
macOS window manager with Vim–like hotkeys
Read about appgrid 's features, license, platforms, and more.
7- Archive Mounter
Mounts archives like disk images (macOS)
Archive Mounter is a macOS application allowing to mount archive files as disk images.
It currently supports ZIP and RAR archives.
Read about Archive Mounter 's features, license, platforms, and more.
8- Assembl
An effortless window manager for macOS
Assembl is a free and open-source app that quickly helps you organize and resize your app windows.
Read about Assembl 's features, license, platforms, and more.
9- Cerebro
Desktop Search Assistant
Cerebro is a multi-platform desktop app that helps the user to search their machine or the internet with no more than a few clicks.
The app is created by Alexandr Subbotin a Russian developer, who also created several useful plugins. Later then, the app attracted many developers who supply it with more plugins and support.
If you are a macOS user, You can notice the similarity with the built-in search app Spotlight search, which indexes all of your files and improve search and access to everything.
Cerebro is similar to Spotlight, but with more extended functions, and a rich plugin set. Like Spotlight, you can use it to access your installed apps and search Google directly without opening any browser.
Cerebro is more than just a search tool, it is a productivity booster that can help you do more.
Read about Cerebro 's features, license, platforms, and more.
10- ClipMenu
A clipboard manager for Mac OS X.
Read about ClipMenu 's features, license, platforms, and more.
11- Cryptomator
macOS encryption tool
Cryptomator is a free open source client-side file encryption tool. Its dead simple to use does not include ads or backdoors. It also does not require registration or paid subscription.
Unlike many open source solutions, which keep the normal users struggling to install, configure and use, Cryptomator is built for normal users. With very simple work flow, Create , Drag-n-Drop, Lock, and Unlock, added into very easy to use Interface, makes Cryptomator less time consuming and more efficient. There is no struggle with creating accounts, figuring out how to manage your keys , cloud access to unlock your files, or over complicated configuration most of alternatives have.
Read about Cryptomator 's features, license, platforms, and more.
12- CotEditor
The Plain-Text Editor for macOS
CotEditor is exactly made for macOS. It looks and behaves just as macOS applications should.
CotEditor launches so quick that you can write your text immediately when you want to.
CotEditor is developed as an open-source project that allows anyone to contribute.
Read about CotEditor 's features, license, platforms, and more.
13- Eplee
Sweet, simple epub reader
Eplee is an ePub reader focused on clean distraction-free reading experience with simple and beautiful UI.
Read about Eplee 's features, license, platforms, and more.
14- EvilOSX
An evil RAT (Remote Administration Tool) for macOS / OS X.
An evil RAT (Remote Administration Tool) for macOS / OS X.
Read about EvilOSX 's features, license, platforms, and more.
15- ExifCleaner
Cross-platform desktop GUI app to clean image metadata
Cross-platform desktop GUI app to clean image metadata
Read about ExifCleaner 's features, license, platforms, and more.
16- Hammerspoon
Staggeringly powerful macOS desktop automation with Lua
Hammerspoon is a tool for powerful automation of macOS. At its core, Hammerspoon is just a bridge between the operating system and a Lua scripting engine. What gives Hammerspoon its power is a set of extensions that expose specific pieces of system functionality, to the user.
Read about Hammerspoon 's features, license, platforms, and more.
17- HandBreak
Multimedia video converter
HandBeak is a video converter and transcode engine for macOS, Windows and Linux. It's free and open source. I have used it several times for my videos it's really easy to use has built-in preset library, supports multiple input sources and dozens of formats and quality options.
Read about HandBreak 's features, license, platforms, and more.
18- iZip
Manage Zip and Compressed file archives ON MAC
iZip is the easiest way to manage ZIP, ZIPX, RAR, TAR, 7ZIP and other compressed files on your Mac. Best of all it's completely free so you can zip, unzip & unrar your files without limitations!
iZip supports all the major modern archive formats like ZIP, RAR, 7ZIP, TAR, BZ2 and XZ, including fully encrypted archives. Simply open an archive with iZip to quickly browse, view and extract.
Read about iZip 's features, license, platforms, and more.
19- iTerm
macOS Terminal app replacment
iTerm2 is a replacement for Terminal and the successor to iTerm. It works on Macs with macOS 10.14 or newer. iTerm2 brings the terminal into the modern age with features you never knew you always wanted.
Read about iTerm 's features, license, platforms, and more.
20- Keka: The archiver
Compress and uncompress folders and files for macOS
Keka is a free compression and decompression lightweight solution. It's easy to use and supports many versions of macOS.
Read about Keka: The archiver 's features, license, platforms, and more.
21- Flashlight
An unofficial Spotlight API that allows you to programmatically process queries and add additional results.
Flashlight gives you control over Spotlight. There are tons of options for customization so you can do things how you want to. Flashlight is designed to make enhancing Spotlight easy and enhance it's usefulness on macOS 10.9 though 10.15
Read about Flashlight 's features, license, platforms, and more.
22- LuLu
free open-source macOS firewall engine
LuLu is the free, open-source firewall that aims to block unknown outgoing connections, protecting your privacy and your Mac!
Read about LuLu 's features, license, platforms, and more.
23- macOS Keylogger
A no-frills keylogger for macOS.
This repository holds the code for a simple and easy to use keylogger for macOS. It is not meant to be malicious, and is written as a proof of concept. There is not a lot of information on keyloggers or implementing them on macOS, and most of the ones I've seen do not work as indicated. This project aims to be a simple implementation on how it can be accomplished on OS X.
Read about macOS Keylogger 's features, license, platforms, and more.
24- Maccy
Clipboard manager for macOS
Maccy is an advanced, lightweight, open-source clipboard manager for macOS. It comes with unique features to boost your productivity and the most prominent one is its shortcuts and unique hotkeys.
Maccy is a native macOS solution, written in Swift programming language by Alex Rodionov.
Read about Maccy 's features, license, platforms, and more.
25- Munki
Managed software installation for OS X
Munki is an open source project originated by Walt Disney Animation Studios.
Munki is a set of tools that, used together with a webserver-based repository of packages and package metadata, can be used by macOS administrators to manage software installs (and in many cases removals) on macOS client machines.
Munki can install software packaged in the Apple package format and software distributed in "drag-and-drop" disk images.
Additionally, Munki can install many Apple Software Updates on Intel Macs, and can prompt users to install pending Apple updates on both Intel and Apple silicon.
Munki is currently in use at organizations all over the world, managing software for tens of thousands -- perhaps hundreds of thousands of Macs.
Munki is a set of tools that, used together with a webserver-based repository of packages and package metadata, can be used by OS X administrators to manage software installs (and in many cases removals) on OS X client machines.
Read about Munki 's features, license, platforms, and more.
26- OnyX
macOS maintenance apps
OnyX is an up-to-date macOS system maintenance app. It contains many system functions like file cleaning, removing old temporary files, cleaning caches and rebuilding database indexes.
Read about OnyX 's features, license, platforms, and more.
27- PaperWM.spoon
Tiled scrollable window manager for MacOS. Inspired by PaperWM.
Read about PaperWM.spoon 's features, license, platforms, and more.
28- PDF stitcher
merge and stitch PDF files
PDF stitcher is a tool that merges and stitches PDF files together, as its name suggests. It is available for Windows 7 and later, as well as macOS devices with both Intel and M1 chips.
Read about PDF stitcher 's features, license, platforms, and more.
29- PeaZip Free Archiver
Free Zip / Unzip software and Rar file extractor
PeaZip is a free file archiver utility and rar extractor for Linux, macOS, and Windows, which works with 200+ archive types and variants (7z, ace, arc, bz2, cab, gz, iso, paq, pea, rar, tar, wim, zip, zipx...), handles spanned archives (001, r01, z01...), supports multiple archive encryption standards, file hashing, exports tasks as console scripts.
The project aims to provide a cross-platform, portable, GUI frontend for multiple Open Source technologies (7-Zip, FreeArc, PAQ/ZPAQ, PEA, UPX, Brotli, Zstd) focused on file and archive management, and security (strong encryption, two factor authentication, encrypted password manager, secure delete).
Read about PeaZip Free Archiver 's features, license, platforms, and more.
30- Quicksilver
macOS launcher
Quicksilver is a fast and free macOS productivity application that gives you the power to control your Mac quickly and elegantly. Quicksilver learns your habits, making your everyday chores simple and efficient.
Quicksilver is a launcher utility app for macOS which gives you the ability to perform common, every-day tasks rapidly and without thought. An introduction to Quicksilver's abilities include:
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Accessing applications, documents, contacts, music and much, much more.
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Browsing your Mac's filesystem elegantly using keywords and 'fuzzy' matching.
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Managing content through drag and drop, or grabbing selected content directly.
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Interacting with installed applications through plugins.
Quicksilver gives you quick access to all your important things. With only a few keystrokes, you can get to your applications, files, contacts, bookmarks, music, etc. Don't get distracted though; although Quicksilver finds and launches things quickly and extremely well, it's more about doing, not finding.
Read about Quicksilver 's features, license, platforms, and more.
31- Rectangle WM
Move and resize windows on macOS with keyboard shortcuts and snap areas
Rectangle is a window management app written in Swift, based on Spectacle. It enables users to customize dozens of actions, such as screen layouts and window positions, and all shortcuts associated with them.
Read about Rectangle WM 's features, license, platforms, and more.
32- Mana
Vulnerability management app for individuals.
Mana is a free macOS app that allows you to examine your running apps security vulnerabilities. However, the free version supports only 10 macOS apps.
Read about Mana 's features, license, platforms, and more.
33- Murus Lite
Firewall manager for macOS
Murus macOS Firewall Unchained with rich-feature set and native user macOS user-interface. It's super user-friendly especially for non-technical users.
Murus unleashes the great power of the macOS built-in PF firewall. Protect your network resources using a very simple interface, take advantage of the many pro features available to design and implement your network infrastructure, to monitor performances and proactively filter dangerous traffic at network layer.
Murus is available in three different versions in order to meet everyone’s needs.
And there’s even more: port knocking, adaptive firewall, NAT and many other features including a blazing-fast logging system.
Read about Murus Lite 's features, license, platforms, and more.
34- ShiftIt
Managing windows size and position in OSX
ShiftIt is an application for OSX that allows you to quickly manipulate window position and size using keyboard shortcuts. It intends to become a full featured window organizer for OSX. It is a complete rewrite of the original ShiftIt by Aravindkumar Rajendiran which is not longer under development.
Read about ShiftIt 's features, license, platforms, and more.
35- Slate
A window management application (replacement for Divvy/SizeUp/ShiftIt)
Slate is a window management application similar to Divvy and SizeUp (except better and free!). Originally written to replace them due to some limitations in how each work, it attempts to overcome them by simply being extremely configurable. As a result, it may be a bit daunting to get configured, but once it is done, the benefit is huge.
Read about Slate 's features, license, platforms, and more.
36- Sloth
Native Mac app that shows all open files, directories, sockets, pipes and devices in use by all running processes.
Sloth is a native Mac app that shows all open files, directories, sockets, pipes, and devices in use by all running processes on your system. This makes it easy to inspect which apps are using which files, etc.
Read about Sloth 's features, license, platforms, and more.
37- Sol
macOS App launcher, focused on ease of use and speed.
Sol is an app launcher, focused on ease of use and speed.
It is aimed to be a replacement for Alfred, Spotlight and Raycast without too much configuration.
Read about Sol 's features, license, platforms, and more.
38- Spotter
🔭 Productivity tool to launch everything
Spotter is a free open-source productivity tool that allows to launch everything (e.g. switch the next song, connect bluetooth device, set a timer, etc.) so you can stay focused on your current task.
Spotter is written using Flutter and Dart language.
Read about Spotter 's features, license, platforms, and more.
39- stats
System monitor from the Menubar
Stats is a free, open-source native menubar macOS application that display all of your system stats in real-time.
It is the right open-source alternative to a dozen of proprietary programs.
Stats app is still in active development, however it gains momentum as thousands of macOS users started to use it right away.
Read about stats 's features, license, platforms, and more.
40- SwiftBar
Powerful macOS menu bar customization tool
Add custom menu bar programs on macOS in three easy steps:
Write a shell script
Add it to SwiftBar
Read about SwiftBar 's features, license, platforms, and more.
41- Brewery
Homebrew GUI is a UI for homebrew package Manager on Mac OS X
Brewery is a GUI for the homebrew Package Manager on OS X.
Brewery only supports a subset of the commands offered by the brew command-line utility:
installing and uninstalling formulas
list available and installed formulas
check for warnings from brew doctor
Read about Brewery 's features, license, platforms, and more.
42- Crok
A fast GUI for Homebrew written in SwiftUI
Cork is a fast free open-source Homebrew manager.
Cork is not just an interface for Homebrew. It has many features that are either very hard to accomplish using Homebrew alone, or straight-up not possible.
Read about Crok 's features, license, platforms, and more.
43- BrewMate - Homebrew GUI
Homebrew GUI apps manager
BrewMate is a macOS GUI application that makes it easy to search for, install, and uninstall Homebrew casks. You can also see the top downloaded casks.
Read about BrewMate - Homebrew GUI 's features, license, platforms, and more.
44- Tiles
Free Tiling Window Manager for macOS
Tiles is a free Tiling Window Manager for macOS.
Read about Tiles 's features, license, platforms, and more.
45- ueli
A keystroke launcher for Windows and macOS
ueli is a free useful tool that boosts your productivity on Windows and macOS.
Read about ueli 's features, license, platforms, and more.
46- The Unarchiver
Open any archive in seconds
The Unarchiver is a free file compression manager supports many archived files especially RAR, ZIP, ACE and TAR. It's totally free and supporting many macOS versions starting from macOS 10.7. It also supports rare archived formats including old formats as well.
The Unarchiver is the only app you need to open RAR on Mac. It’s times more powerful than the native macOS utility and supports infinitely more archive formats.
The app spports all popular file formats, rate formats, as well as old formats.
Read about The Unarchiver 's features, license, platforms, and more.
47- VLC
Multimedia player for all platforms
VLC is a libre and open source media player and multimedia engine, focused on playing everything, and running everywhere.
VLC can play most multimedia files, discs, streams, devices and is also able to convert, encode, stream and manipulate streams into numerous formats.
VLC is used by many over the world, on numerous platforms, for very different use cases.
The engine of VLC can be embedded into 3rd party applications, and is called libVLC.
VLC is part of the VideoLAN project and is developed and supported by a community of volunteers.
The VideoLAN project was started at the university École Centrale Paris who relicensed VLC under the GPLv2 license in February 2001. Since then, VLC has been downloaded billions of times.
Read about VLC 's features, license, platforms, and more.
48- yabai
A tiling window manager for macOS based on binary space partitioning
yabai is a window management utility that is designed to work as an extension to the built-in window manager of macOS. yabai allows you to control your windows, spaces and displays freely using an intuitive command line interface and optionally set user-defined keyboard shortcuts using ↗ skhd and other third-party software.
The primary function of yabai is tiling window management; automatically modifying your window layout using a binary space partitioning algorithm to allow you to focus on the content of your windows without distractions. Additional features of yabai include focus-follows-mouse, disabling animations for switching spaces, creating spaces past the limit of 16 spaces, and much more.
Read about yabai 's features, license, platforms, and more.
49- Yippy
An open source clipboard manager for macOS
Yippy is a features rich open-source clipboard manager for macOS.
Read about Yippy 's features, license, platforms, and more.
50- Zazu App
open-source launcher for hackers
Zazu App is a fully extensible and open source launcher for hackers, creators and dabblers. It comes with sane defaults to make it useful out of the box. But everything can be changed to fit your needs. Don't let others tell you the best way to be productive, configure it to be perfect for you.
Zazu was created to be a fully open source alternative to Alfred, but also be completely plugin based. You can remove any functionality you don't like, so if you hate the built in calculator, just get a new one!
Read about Zazu App 's features, license, platforms, and more.
51- P7ZIP
Open-source file compression for macOS, Unix, and *nix systems
p7zip is a port of 7za.exe for POSIX systems like Unix (Linux, Solaris, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Cygwin, AIX, ...), MacOS X and also for BeOS and Amiga.
Read about P7ZIP 's features, license, platforms, and more.