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Adium: the best multi-platform chat client for Mac, period. Free. |
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AppCleaner: Will remove an app and all its supporting files, like the Add/Remove Programs feature in Windows, something sorely lacking in OS X. Free. |

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Apple RemoteDesktop, remotely monitor and control multiple Macs, install apps, run terminal commands, take reports and more. It was worth it at $500, now its a steal for $80. App Store. |
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BatChmod: easily batch change file ownership & permissions with drag-and-drop. |
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BetterTouchTool: Amazing amount of customization for clicking, tapping & swiping on the Magic Mouse and magic Trackpad. Turns my Magic Mouse into a killer presentation remote. Free! |
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Google Chrome: Its a web browser. I like it. |
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Coconut Battery: Analyze your Mac battery, count your recharge cycles, and find out if you still get the capacity you used to. |
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Cyberduck: A good, free FTP client. Well, free online, $24 on the App Store. |
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Deeper: From the shadowy syndicate that gave you Onyx, access a bunch of hidden system features without having to use “defaults write” in the terminal. Lion Only, and free. |
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DropBox |
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FileRenamer: Batch renaming of file names, much faster than doing it one by one in the finder. Lite version is free in the App Store. |
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Flip4Mac: Microsoft dripped WMV support on the Mac, and let these guys take over. Play WMV files on your mac with Quicktime. Free to play, $ to encode your own. |
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Google notifier will notify you of Gcal appointments and Gmail messages in your menu bar. Free. |
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Handbrake: Convert almost any video format to almost any other video format. It includes queueing, previews, and presets. If you install VLC first, it will even rip DVDs better than anything else. Free. |
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iStat Menus: Monitoring of disks, network bandwidth, temperature, memory usage and more. $16 and worth it. |
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Kindle: If you read ebooks, you know about Kindle. It syncs with your Amazon account, and its free. |
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Mactracker: A database of the speed & specs of everything Apple has ever made. Your mom wants to upgrade her 7-year-old iMac? This will tell you what speed RAM it takes. Free. |
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Crack open installer files and install just the components you want. Free. |
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Palua: if you use F-keys a lot, say while video editing, this little menu bar utility can let you quickly toggle the behavior of your F-Keys. A buck in the App Store. |
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Property List Editor: Apple tool to easily view & edit .plist files in a readable format. Get it as part of the Xcode developer tools. Free in the App Store. |
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SecondBar: Lets you add your menu bar at the top of every screen if you use multiple monitors. Yes! Free. |
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Text Wrangler: The best darn text editor that isnt BBEdit, by the same company, strangely enough. Great find & replace, color-coding for many scripting & programming languages, edit invisible & hidden files, and edit a system file as root. Free in the App Store. |
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The Unarchiver: Will unzip all those pesky password-protected and segmented .zip files that the Mac can’t seem to unzip on its own. Free in the App Store. |
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Stuffit Expander: 99% of the world uses .zip now, but there are still some stubborn Stuffit files out there. Free in the App Store. |
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µTorrent: A nice, clean torrent client for Mac. Free. |
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VideoLAN Client: An open source project, VLC will open every darn video file format out there. Also lets you rip DVDs with Handbrake. Free. |
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Evernote: Simple, clean, note taking app with tags. It syncs between Macs, PCs, the web, iPhones, iPad and android. Now I always have my shopping list, to-do list and random thoughts anywhere I go. Free, or a few bucks if you use a TON of bandwidth. |
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Proton pack Server: An easy way to create .plist files for ASR Multicast streams. Free! |
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Lingon: Create your own LaunchDaemons: trigger apps & scripts on any schedule, at login, at startup, or when triggered by another event. Lingon 2 for Snow leopard is $5, Lingon 3 for Lion is $3. App Store. |
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DiskWarrior: It only does one thing, but it does it better than anyone– repair your hard drive directory. For about $75, if you only use it once it pays for itself. This is on my Must-Have list. |
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Play all those pesky video codecs QuickTime doesnt understand out of the box. Free. |
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Great list of must have apps, Thanks Alex!
Thanks for creating a handy list of useful Mac tools!