The Best Advent Christmas Calendars for 2020 That Aren’t Cardboard Chocolate. IPad and Android, and there’s a mini app for Mac OS X as well. I am just a beginner in GTD but really love. Mac OS X is blessed (or perhaps plagued) with more to-do apps than you could ever use. Our favourite is Wunderlist thanks to its solid set of features, syncing capabilities, cross.
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There are many applications that can help you work faster and efficiently. Though, not many applications come cheap. For this post we tried to digg deep to find the best selection of free and/or open source Mac applications that will help you be a more efficient designer. We’re covering from application launchers, GTD (Getting Things Done) to design utilities that can help you focus on what’s important: create.
You may also want to take a look at the following related posts:
1. aLunch
aLunch is a very lightweight but powerful application that does what it is supposed to do and nothing more: a handy launcher that runs from within the menu bar. The application was written back in 2007, and two years later it still proves to be a strong contender.
aLunch helps you get all your apps organized and get an uncluttered dock. You can customize a hot key combination so a launcher window shows and let’s you choose either a Launcher window or go to the Launcher Menu. You can use this application with a Mac running OSX 10.4 or higher. If you have an earlier OS X such as 10.3, you need to update to version 10.3.9 to use an earlier version of the application.
2. Adobe Kuler
Adobe’s Creative Suite 4 applications – Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, Fireworks and Flash – have an Extension panel that connects directly to Kuler, the web-hosted application for generating color themes. Not many designers take advantage of a powerful tool like this one. Logging into Kuler.com with your Adobe ID, you can create color swatches themes from a color, share, rate and search the community color schemes, and upload or use a Flickr image to extract color themes so you can download them as an Adobe Swatch Exchange file that’s compatible with Adobe applications.
But you can also access the Kuler site from its own standalone application to get more flexibility. Also there is a Dashboard widget to help you browse through your color schemes and the communities. To install Kuler Desktop you need to have Mac OS X 10.4.11 or Mac OS X 10.5.4 and up, with Adobe Air and Flash Player installed.
3. Name Changer
Name Changer is a very straightforward and simple tool that will help you rename batches of files without the hassle of Automator or Photoshop batch change – the latter can get a little too technical for some users.
This application saves you the time of naming each file manually. Name Changer gives you a wide variety of options that go from select text replacement to fully customizable text replacement. Designed for OSX 10.5, NameChanger is a Universal Binary, so it runs on both Intel and PowerPC macs. If you have a OSX 10.3 or 10.4 Mac, there’s a version that you can use too, so those Macs with earlier OS can still use the application.
4. YemuZip
YemuZip is a more powerful Zip-archive application that with a simple drag and drop interface, makes creating zip files an easy task. YemuZip lets you choose between a PC-compatible format and a Mac format that preserve all the Mac-specific metadata.
The tool lets you choose the destination of your zip file (same as source, Desktop or Documents) and can attach the file to an email message for easy sending. Runs on OS X 10.4 or later and it is an Universal Binary.
5. Dateline
A subtle replacement for having the date shown on the Menu bar, Dateline gives you a linear calendar on your desktop within a transparent window. One very useful feature is that it has direct access to iCal when double clicking on a day.
The background and text colors are fully customizable along with transparency to make it blend seamlessly with your current desktop. This application requires Mac OS X 10.5 and higher.
6. DropBox
DropBox is by far the easiest way to share files if you are on a low budget and do not want to be bothered with server side issues when sharing files with clients. Since it’s an application that runs in the background, you can leave it running and it does the file updates on the machines seamlessly. You have a 2GB limit for the free accounts, 50GB for the Pro account at $99.00 per year or a 100GB for the Premium account at US$199 per year.
Another useful aspect of this app is that you can sign in and access your files from any browser, not necessarily from your Mac. The file sharing is done over SSL and encrypted with AES-256 before storage, so they are safe. From the visual side, a blue sync mark shows when the files are syncing and a green check mark appears when it’s done. What’s best, it’s that it’s not just for Mac, it’s compatible with Windows and Linux.
Every time you update a file, Dropbox transfers what was updated from the original uploaded file, so working with large Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign documents is a breeze. If you need to share files with users that don’t have Dropbox, you can use your Public folder and all the files in that folder will be given a unique link so you can send that for a direct download. And if you accidentally delete a file, you can “undelete it” from the web interface. Overall, it’s a time saving application when you want a fast way to share files with clients or co-workers.
7. Quicksilver
Quicksilver is a powerful application launcher, an application that will create catalogs of your frequently used apps, folders and documents. What’s interesting is that the search grows and adapts from what you do everyday. One very useful feature, If you have all your contacts in Address Book is that you can search within Quicksilver the contact name and when you hit enter on the telephone number, it shows on big type over the screen, so it’s a quick way of looking at a phone number without launching Address Book itself. An alternative: Namely.
You can enhance Quicksilver with plugins to do more powerful things, like uploading files using applications as Transmit, Queue albums on iTunes, emailing files or even moving the file’s location without doing it from the Finder. To run Quicksilver, you need a Mac with OS X 10.4 or higher.
8. iClockr
This is a small application that tracks your work time. You can set up different projects, and tasks for each project, and associate them to a client. The concept around iClockr is to have actions timed, for that you create tasks to be timed and those tasks add up to create a project. Each task is timed with a stopwatch, even the application’s dock icon changes to a stopwatch.
You can edit the task durations for better and more exact timing. iClockr also offers two modes to manage your times: Flat Rate or Range based. You can match each project with customers (within the application’s Preferences pane). iClockr is a Mac Universal application that runs on Leopard only.
9. Caffeine
When video chatting or having a voice-only-call with a client, Caffeine has proved its place on Macs. Caffeine prevents your mac of going to sleep, dimming the screen and avoids the screen savers to start.
![Best Best](/uploads/1/3/4/0/134040040/540436845.png)
To get to the application’s preferences, hold down the Command key while clicking to show the menu. Lightheads’ website doesn’t specify if Caffeine works with other OS versions different than Leopard.
10. iTool
iTool is a free application that offers a complete system maintenance and cleaning. It has a friendly user interface that guides you to complete the needed maitenance task.
Also, hidden on the Application menu (not found on the application’s main window), you can reach other options to tweak the look of the Dock (2D or 3D) or the Finder among others. This application is Leopard only.
11. The Unarchiver
For those short on budget, there’s a very light and powerfull free app called The Unarchiver. It allows you to extract many more file formats besides the .zip, such as .tar-gzip, .tar-bzip2, .rar, 7-zip, .lhA and stuffIt. Also it better handles filenames from foreign character sets, created with non-English versions of other operating systems.
![Best Gtd App Mac Os X Best Gtd App Mac Os X](/uploads/1/3/4/0/134040040/331062706.jpg)
The installation is very simple: copy the applications into your Applications folder and start using the application. The Unarchiver requires Mac OS X 10.3.9. Adobe flash player 10 for mac free download.
12. Paparazzi!
Paparazzi! is a small utility for Mac OS X that makes screenshots of web-pages. Paparazzi! allows you to define minimum size and capture size, so you can capture the best screenshot according to your needs. You can choose between saving the resulting picture as .jpeg, .pdf, .png or .tiff, also adding a thumbnail and thumbnail icon. Its current version, 0.4.3 works on Mac OS X 10.3 or later, and their 0.5 beta is Leopard only.
13. AllBookmarks
AllBookmarks is a small menu bar item that provides you with a quick access to your browser’s bookmarks. It grabs Safari, Firefox and Flock bookmarks and also gives you access to 1Password 1Click bookmarks so you can navigate, fill a form and submit it with ease. The tool is a Universal Binary application which means that it works on Intel or PowerPC Macs, running OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Imessage for mac.
14. DockSpaces
DockSpaces is a small application that allows you to have up to 10 different docks, and swap them from the menu bar. You can also link a Dock with a Leopard’s Spaces so you can redefine your productivity. With Growl notification, you know which dock you are using. You can change the configuration for each dock for a more personalized usage. This application is a Universal Binary and Leopard only.
15. TaskMate
TaskMate is a very simple and light task management application. Create a task, check it off when completed and it disappears from your list. The completed tasks are visible on the sidebar that you can toggle on and off. TaskMate runs on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and it is a Universal Binary Application.
16. Symbol Caddy
The Symbol Caddy Dashboard widget keeps a bunch of common special characters at your fingertips. Keyboard mode copies the special character and HTML mode copies the HTML entity code. Mac OS X 10.5.0 or higher is required. Best home budget app for mac. CharacterPal does the same and is also freeware.
17. iZoom
iZoom is a simple application designed to allow you to easily resize and crop your photos for optimized display on your iPod photo, on the web, or in email messages to friends. Built using Java, iZoom is available for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows. Currently, JPEG is the only supported image format.
18. JumpCut
Jumpcut is an application that provides “clipboard buffering” — that is, access to text that you’ve cut or copied, even if you’ve subsequently cut or copied something else. The goal of Jumpcut’s interface is to provide quick, natural, intuitive access to your clipboard’s history. The application is available as a Universal Binary that requires OS X 10.3.9 or later. Users running earlier versions of OS X should try Jumpcut 0.54, which should work with OS X 10.1 and later. Source code is also available. Jumpcut is open sourced under the MIT License.
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19. Name Mangler
Name Mangler is a batch file renamer that supports all common renaming tasks: Find and Replace (including support for regular expressions); Number Sequentially; Change Case; Set Extension; Add Prefix/Suffix; Remove/Insert Characters. You can combine all of these using the Advanced renaming mode, which even comes with some extra features, such as conditional statements, nested counters etc. Name Mangler 2.0 runs natively on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs and requires Mac OS X 10.5 or later.
20. CyberDuck
Cyberduck is an open source FTP, SFTP-client and also a WebDAV, Mosso Cloud Files and Amazon S3 browser for the Mac. It features an easy to use interface with quickly accessible bookmarks. The outline view of the browser allows to browse large folder structures efficiently and you can quickly preview files with Quick Look. To edit files, a seamless integration with several external editors makes it easy to change content quickly. An alternative: Filezilla.
Gtd Google Apps
21. TextWrangler
TextWrangler is the powerful general purpose text editor, and Unix and server administrator’s tool. Essentially, it is a free version of BBEdit (see below). It offers a broad range of support for different programming languages, and fantastic find and replace functionality. A reliable and powerful tool, especially considering its freeware status. (via appstorm.net). Requires: Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Alternatives: eMacs, Smultron, TextEdit (native Mac-app).
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22. Growl
Growl is a notification system for Mac OS X: it allows applications that support Growl to send you notifications. Growl offers you complete control over which notifications are shown and how they are displayed. You will not receive any notifications that you do not want, because you can easily turn notifications (specific ones or all of them) off. Growl requires Mac OS X 10.4 or higher.
23. Gmail Notifr
Gmail Notifr sends you notifications about the received e-mails and other events in your Google account. It supports multiple accounts, checks mail at a specified interval, has Growl and sound notifications and has no background daemon processes installed as Google’s official notifier. Requirements: Mac OS X 10.5+ (Leopard).
24. MAMP
MAMP installs a local server environment in a matter of seconds on your Mac OS X computer, be it PowerBook or iMac. MAMP will not compromise any existing Apache installation already running with your OS X. You can install Apache, PHP and MySQL without starting a script or having to change any configuration files.
25. And so many more!
Our friends from Appstorm.net have recently published The Ultimate Mac Setup For Web Designers: 60 Apps and 60 Open Source and Free Mac Apps which cover dozens of extremely useful and powerful applications that you can download and use for free. You can also check out the list of open source Mac applications on OpenSourceMac.org.
We missed some really cool open source Mac-application? Please let us know in the comments to this post!
Reference Links
All the links mentioned in the article.
- aLunch A very handy launcher that runs from your Mac’s menu bar.
- Kuler Color themes generator.
- Name Changer A powerful batch name changer.
- YemuZip Creating Zip files has never been so easy.
- Dateline Linear calendar for your desktop.
- DropBox Online file sharing system.
- Quicksilver Adaptive appliction launcher.
- Transmit Powerful FTP client software.
- iTunes Digital media player from Apple.
- iClockr Timing application for multiple projects.
- Caffeine Keep your mac from sleep.
- iTool Complete System Maintenance, cleaning and customizing the look of Leopard.
- The Unarchiver Unarchive with power.
- Paparazzi! Grab stunning screenshots of webpages.
- AllBookmarks Bookmarks from your menu bar.
- TaskMate Task management made easy with a OS X feel.
- Symbol Caddy Keeps a bunch of common special characters at your fingertips.
- iZoom Allows you to easily resize and crop your photos for optimized display.
- JumpCut Provides “clipboard buffering” – access to text that you’ve cut or copied, even if you’ve subsequently cut or copied something else.
- Name Mangler A batch file renamer that supports all common renaming tasks.
- CyberDuck An open source FTP, SFTP-client.
- TextWrangler The powerful general purpose text editor, and Unix and server administrator’s tool.
- Growl A notification system for Mac OS X.
- Gmail Notifr Sends you notifications about the received e-mails and other events in your Google account.
- MAMP Installs a local server environment in a matter of seconds on your Mac OS X computer.
How you organize your to-do list can make you more productive. You don't want to see your household shopping list while in the thick of office work, and you don't want to be reminded of an important presentation while you're grocery shopping on your day off. Working on the right tasks at the right time is a central tenet of the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, which is designed with productivity in mind. If you follow GTD or are thinking of adopting it, you need an app built to work with this unique system. While there are hundreds of to-do apps you could use, we tested more than 30 options to find the 10 best apps for GTD. These apps help you follow GTD and get more done.
What Is GTD?
GTD stands for Getting Things Done, which is both a book title and a method of working developed by David Allen. Getting Things Done contains both overarching theories about personal productivity as well as a step-by-step approach for organizing everything you need to do. How to download and mount image mac.
As mentioned, an important principle in GTD is to focus on the right tasks at the right time. Location words, such as 'home' and 'office' show up often on a GTD task list. Additionally, GTD encourages you to write down any tasks or ideas that pop into your mind quickly so you can get them out of your mind and save them for later without getting distracted from whatever you're doing in the moment. While the GTD method has a lot more to it and you can implement this with pen and paper, those two examples—using location words and writing down ideas quickly—are reasons an app designed for GTD is superior to using paper. Additionally, editing your tasks is easier and cleaner in an app than on paper, whether you're re-prioritizing items, re-assigning due dates, or changing your language to be more specific about what you need to get done.
See our overview of GTD for more about the methodology.
Some (including Allen) have argued that when you remember a task that you need to write down, it's faster to do it on paper than take out your phone, open an app, and tap the right buttons. But that's not necessarily the case when you sit in front of a computer all day long, or if you use speech-to-text dictation on your phone.
Being able to send a note from the email app that's already open on your desktop directly into your to-do app can save you time and prevent distractions that can come from looking at other ideas you've jotted down. Similarly, having a shortcut on your phone that opens a new task note in your GTD app where you can dictate an idea is anything but tedious. It's fast, efficient, and simple. Capabilities such as those are part of what make some GTD apps better than others.
A Note on Price: GTD apps are rarely free, and when a free tier of service is available, it's often quite limited. In this list of the best apps for GTD, only two have a free offering: NirvanaHQ and Todo by Appigo. Most charge either a recurring subscription fee, anywhere from $20 to $120 per year, or charge somewhere in the ballpark of a $50-one-time fee for a desktop app.
How We Choose the Best GTD Apps
The apps on this list all meet three basic requirements. First, they have features that are specific to GTD, such as the ability to add context to tasks. Second, they're accessible on more than one platform, because it's important to be able to refer to your GTD list no matter where you are. (In a perfect world, we'd favor apps that are available on as many platforms as possible, but among GTD apps, some of the better ones are for macOS and iOS only.) Third, they have to be intuitive to use and well designed, so people will actually use them. That's something we determined through hands-on testing.
A little more on the first point: As many followers of GTD know, some apps are specifically designed for the method while others are flexible and can be used for it if you set them up for that purpose. For example, note-taking app Evernote wasn't designed specifically for Allen's method, but you can easily configure the settings and features to use Evernote for GTD. Nevertheless, we don't include apps of that nature here.
If you're looking for a task-management app with more flexibility, see also our recommendations of the 40 best to-do apps.
So, all that said, here, in alphabetical order, are the 10 best apps for GTD.
The Best Apps for GTD
2do
Best for adding specific details to tasks
2do is a feature-rich app for GTD available for Mac and iOS devices only. One helpful feature for people who follow GTD is that 2do has built-in fields for adding specific details to your task, such as place for a phone number when your task involves making a call or sending a text. 2do supports audio memos, time estimates for tasks, a calendar view, and fine granularity for adding reminders. Every task can have a unique reminder at a certain time with a tone, pop-up message, or whatever else you customize for it. This reasonably priced app doesn't offer collaboration natively, but you can share lists when you sync it via Apple Reminders. It also doesn't let you create new tasks via email, unless you sync it via Toodledo and use the email option provided in that app.
Supported platforms: iOS, macOS
Price: $14.99 (iOS), $49.99 (Mac)
FacileThings
Best for capturing and reviewing ideas and tasks the GTD way
The web and mobile app FacileThings has a slick interface and uses several GTD-specific hooks to make it compelling. Its best feature is a two-step process called Capture and Clarify. You write down tasks quickly when they come to mind in a tab of the app called Capture, then when the time is right, you review them one by one in the Clarify section. It works very well for people who follow a strict GTD methodology, but it's not ideal if you like to add details to your tasks (such as deadline, urgency flag, estimated amount of time to complete) when they come to mind because you must wait until the Clarify step to do so. Overall, FacileThings is a very good app with a wealth of features, including the ability to add tasks via email, and an aesthetically pleasing design.
Supported platforms: Android, iOS, web
Price: $84/year
Firetask
Best for managing project-style work
Firetask is a GTD app for Mac and iOS only that's well suited for people who have project-based work. Firetask includes an option to delegate tasks by assigning them to your contacts, though it doesn't offer true collaboration the way full-featured project management apps do. Other GTD features include views such as Today, showing all tasks that are due now or have been marked with a star, and Next for upcoming tasks and projects. Firetask also includes a kanban view of your tasks. The apps are sold separately for a reasonable one-time fee.
Supported platforms: macOS, iOS
Supported platforms: macOS, iOS
Price: $39.99 (Mac); $19.99 (iOS)
Focuster
Best Gtd App For Android
Best for scheduling tasks
The web-app Focuster, which is also accessible on mobile browsers, was made for busy entrepreneurs who need help with time management. Its signature feature is that it automatically checks your Google Calendar for times when you're free and then schedules tasks accordingly. You tell Focuster when tasks are due and how long you expect them to take, in addition to your working hours and time off, and it takes care of the rest. Focuster does not offer the ability to create tasks by simply sending an email to a unique address, the way many other GTD apps do, but you can achieve the same thing through an integration with Zapier.
Supported platforms: web (including mobile browser)
Price: from $119.88/year
NirvanaHQ
Cannot uninstall totalav from mac not listed in apps. Best for following GTD to a tee
Designed with GTD in mind, task-management app NirvanaHQ comes preset with lists labeled Next, Waiting, Later, Scheduled, and Someday, plus an Inbox for capturing ideas on the fly. Nirvana has mobile apps for both Android and iOS, and a web app that supports plenty of keyboard shortcuts for when you're on a desktop. Each task can contain a time estimate, as well as an energy level estimate, so that you can easily find tasks that require low energy whenever you're starting to flag but still want to get things done.
Supported platforms: Android, iOS, web
Price: free with limitations; $5/month or $29/year for Pro; $49 flat fee for lifetime Pro
Nozbe
Best for use across a wide variety of platforms
Some GTD app makers spin out a version for macOS and another for iOS, then call it a day. Nozbe, however, also has apps for Windows, Android, Linux, Apple Watch, and the web. It supports collaboration, with tiers of service for individuals, small teams, and businesses. Unlike many other GTD apps, Nozbe also offers a free tier of service that has an active project limit of five.
Supported platforms: Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, web, Windows
Price: $96/year
OmniFocus 3
Best for forecasting availability in a calendar view
OmniFocus, now in version 3 for iOS and with a new Mac app coming September 2018, is a straightforward and powerful task-management app that's setup for GTD. It has features and functionality you'd expect, such as different areas for collecting new ideas (Inbox), organizing your todos (Projects), seeing what's relevant at the appropriate time (Context), and so forth. It's better for managing project work than one-off todos, although you're not limited from doing both. OmniFocus has a calendar view that you can use to forecast your best availability when scheduling new tasks. OmniFocus belongs to a suite of other apps for planning, outlining, and creating graphics, making it a good option for anyone who's also shopping for other productivity apps.
Supported platforms: iOS, macOS
Price: $39.99 for Mac app or $79.99 for Pro; iOS app an additional $39.99 or $59.99 for Pro
Things 3
Best for visualizing progress
Things 3 is another straightforward GTD app, with an Inbox for collecting ideas and tasks as they come to mind, and sections that show you relevant tasks for the moment, such as Today and Upcoming. What makes Things shine, however, is its attention to detail. Being able to create headings within lists to group or separate items, for example, makes it easier to assess your tasks at a glance. The airy design of the calendar view, too, makes the app easy to read rather than cluttered looking. It also has a small graphic showing your progress toward completion for projects, a little circle graph that fills in as you check off related tasks. Things 3 is among the best GTD apps for its balance of design and features, though it's only available for Mac and iOS devices.
Supported platforms: iOS, macOS
Price: $9.99 (iOS), $49.99 (Mac)
Todo (by Appigo)
Best for offering a free tier of service
The GTD app simply called Todo has three tiers of service: Basic, Cloud, and For Business. The Basic app is free to use, and seeing as free is a rarity in this app category, it makes Todo attractive to anyone who wants the option to use it indefinitely without paying. A clear interface puts GTD-themed Smart Lists, such as Someday and Focus, into a left-side rail, along with your custom lists and a mini calendar. While the free Basic level works very well, its primary limitation is that it doesn't sync across other devices. For that, you'll have to pay a reasonable $19.99/year.
Supported platforms: Android, iOS, macOS, web, Windows Best disk utility apps mac.
Price: free for Todo Basic; $19.99/year for Todo Cloud; $39.99/year for Todo For Business
Zendone
Best for organizing information into Tickler folders
Although Zendone takes a little time to learn to use properly, it's a powerful GTD app once you get the hang of it. It's also the only GTD app I've seen to include Tickler folders, used for organizing items you need on particular days, such as airline tickets (or in the digital age, confirmation numbers and a link to a mobile boarding pass) and bills to pay. Similar to other GTD apps, Zendone gives you different sections for writing down, reviewing, and processing your tasks and thoughts. It has plenty of other GTD features, too, for tagging items by context, adding a time estimate, and indicating how much energy the task requires. While Zendone does not support task creation via email natively, you can enable it through an integration with Evernote.
Supported platforms: Android, iOS, macOS, web
Best Gtd App Mac Os X El Capitan
Price: $60/year
GTD has a lot to offer, but it isn't for everyone. If it doesn't sound right for you, try exploring some other work methodologies designed for productivity until something clicks with you.
Alternatively, you can always borrow the parts of GTD that do sound up your alley and find a more flexible tool that lets you carry out the system in your own style. For example, we've found that using kanban apps for GTD can offer a rewarding experience, especially to people who enjoy organizing their tasks visually.
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Top image by Freepik.