Despite the recent resurgence of vinyl, streaming is the future of music listening. Music streaming is cheap -- or in the case of Pandora or Spotify even free -- and is more convenient than any physical format. Sound quality is a lock too: in some cases these services sound indistinguishable from, or even better than, a CD.
Most services advertise catalogs of over 40 million songs, but each has unique pros and cons besides how many songs you won't be listening to. This guide details the top, on-demand music streaming options -- Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora and Tidal -- as well as Google Play Music and Amazon Music Unlimited, to help you decide which one is worth your money. We've purposefully left out services that only play music in a radio format.
Note, CNET may get a share of revenue from the sale of services featured on this page.
Our top choice: Spotify is the best for most people
Let's cut to the chase. While it's a close race between Spotify and Apple Music, Spotifywins our vote with a fun, easy-to-use interface, an extensive catalog and the best device compatibility. Spotify's free tier had some recent improvements, making it the best no-cost option.
- Amazon Music We’re changing the way you find and play the music you love • Listen free with a Prime membership or get more with Amazon Music Unlimited • Go hands-free with Alexa! No need to tap, just say “Alexa” wait for the tone, and ask to play music.
- Amazon Music is an app that allows users to shop, play, manage, and download music. The new app provides Mac users with a seamless way to manage their entire music library -- whether saved on their computer or in the cloud -- and shop from the Amazon MP3 Store with a catalog of more than 25 million songs.
- The Amazon App for Windows 10 PC/Tablet allows you to shop just as you do on the web. Search for products using the Amazon App, and easily add them to your shopping cart to purchase. You have full access to your existing cart and wish lists.
- Amazon Music for Mac is fast. It'll get you from launch to play in seconds. Amazon Music for Mac detects and adds new music to your library even if you bought it from iTunes or ripped a CD.
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Apple Musicis a close second, however, in part because it's the only one of the 'big four' with a digital locker to store your own songs. And if you own an Apple HomePod ($299 at Walmart), you will need this service if you want to summon music with your voice. It also makes the ideal companion for a new iPod Touch, which, amazingly, is a thing.
In third place is Tidal, which is also worth a look if you are interested in the best audio quality.
Google Play Music and Amazon Music Unlimited are in the game. While they didn't top our list, they each are worthy options for users with specific needs or requirements. For instance, if having YouTube Red's ad-free service is important to you, Google Play Music is thrown in for free. And Amazon offers a discounted Echo-only version of its service, which may tip the scales if you already have an Alexa-heavy household.
While Pandora's free service is excellent, its on-demand service still lags behind the others in catalog breadth.
It's also worth mentioning Qobuz, which launched in the US this year. It's still too early to call, but at first blush this Tidal competitor offers a clean interface, hi-res streams and the ability to buy lossless music. The catalog isn't quite at the level of Tidal or Spotify, however.
And remember: These plans all offer free trial periods, and the default sign-ups are 'no-contract' options. So you're largely free to come and go as you please. Don't be afraid to try the waters of a rival service if you're not completely satisfied.
So here's what we think of the the top six music-streaming services, presented in alphabetical order. It's worth noting that all of these services will work on the major platforms: Android, iOS, PC and Mac.
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Spotify
Spotify is the pioneer in the music-streaming space, and it's arguably the best known. It offers a number of different music discovery services including its Discover Weekly playlist and is constantly experimenting with new ones such as the Australia-only Stations. The service's (now optional) Facebook integration makes sharing music easier than competitors, offering the ability to send a track or album, collaborate on playlists with friends, or peek at what your Facebook friends are listening to.
The Good
- Free version is impressively robust.
- It's easy to build your own playlists and sync them for offline listening.
- User-friendly apps that are updated frequently and have enough features without being overwhelming.
- Allows you to follow artists and to be alerted when they release new music or announce an upcoming show.
- Highly personalized custom playlists.
- Spotify Connect simplifies connecting to wireless speakers and AV receivers.
The Bad
- Advertisements in the free service can be intrusive.
Best for: People who want a solid all-around service, and especially for people who love to make, browse and share playlists for any scenario.
Apple Music
While it suffered from teething problems at the beginning, Apple Music has grown to become one of the most popular streaming services. It offers plenty of features and a wealth of discount options for families and students. There's also ton of playlists, many hand-crafted by musicians and tastemakers, but it still lacks the robust sharing options built into Spotify.
The Good
- It combines your iTunes library with music you don't own, rounding out what you can play.
- A combination of human music experts and algorithms help find music you'll want to hear based on what you play.
- You can control what you hear or search for new music using Siri on iOS devices.
- Has music locker via iTunes Match ($25, £22 or AU$35 a year).
- Currently the only choice for Apple HomePod users who want to use voice control.
The Bad
- As you'd expect, the Android app and experience isn't as smooth as the iOS one.
- Doesn't work with old iPods (except iPod Touch).
Best for: Those who want to listen to albums and songs they've added to iTunes or use an Apple HomePod.
Tidal
Owned by hip-hop mogul Jay Z, Tidal is the only 'major' streaming music service that offers lossless streaming with sound quality that is virtually identical to -- or better than -- CD. Tidal has offered exclusive content in the past from its superstar co-owners -- Beyonce's album 'Lemonade' or Kanye West's 'The Life of Pablo' -- but this trend has thankfully subsided. However, sometimes albums are inexplicably missing and these include every Metallica album (Spotify exclusive) or Boards of Canada's seminal Music Has The Right To Children. If you're an audiophile, a fan of R&B or hip-hop, or a mix of both, then Tidal might appeal to you.
The Good
- High-fidelity music streams.
- Lots of video content, including concert livestreams.
- Offers occasional ticket presales.
- Big focus on under-the-radar (predominantly hip-hop) artists.
- Profiles and record reviews on every page.
The Bad
- The mobile apps and web player aren't as straightforward as some others.
- The catalog isn't as exhaustive as Spotify's.
Best for: Musically inclined purists who care deeply about sound quality and discovering new, up-and-coming artists.
Google Play Music
Though it's soon to be replaced by YouTube Music, Google Play Music works as a streaming-music service and a music locker. It allows you to store and stream your entire music library (up to 50,000 songs), as well as stream any of the 30 million songs in its catalog. Instead of playlists, well-curated radio stations are the standout feature of Play Music. Unlike playlists, which are finite and contain specific tracks, radio stations play endlessly and are updated often.
The Good
- This hybrid service seamlessly integrates your personal collection with the streaming catalog.
- Monthly fee includes subscription to YouTube Music: commercial-free streaming on YouTube and YouTube Music.
- Offers music locker service for free.
The Bad
- The lack of a timeline for its replacement is frustrating.
- The interface is less fun than competitors, particularly on desktop.
Best for:Google fans who want to blend the music they've purchased with streaming selections.
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Amazon Music Unlimited
Amazon Music Unlimited is the 'grown-up' version of Amazon Prime Music that Prime subscribers get for 'free.' It offers a greatly expanded catalog for an extra outlay per month. Rather than focusing on the cutting edge of music as some others here do, the service features recommended playlists and radio stations that are grouped around artists you've already listened to.
The Good
- Cheapest per month -- if you're an Amazon Prime member.
- Lyrics automatically pop up on the 'now playing' screen.
- Offers free music stations for Amazon Echo, Echo Dot ($6.99 at Amazon) and Amazon Tap (includes ads).
The Bad
- Artist profiles don't have biographies.
- Officially advertised as 'tens of millions' of tracks strong, it's unclear if the catalog is quite as large as its competitors listed here (see chart below).
- The service no longer includes a music locker.
Best for: Amazon Prime members who want to save a few bucks on a decent music catalog.
Pandora Premium
Now a fully fledged streaming service with the addition of the a la carte Premium and no-ads Plus tiers, Pandora also offers one of the most popular radio services in the US. As a result the company offers more flexibility than most competitors and is gaining in subscribers, even if it is behind in terms of overall catalog size.
The Good
- The service enjoys one of the largest user bases, thanks to its free version.
- Pandora's 'Music Genome Project' analyzes each track according to 450 different attributes in order to give better suggestions.
The Bad
- The size of the catalog isn't up the level of its competition's (last estimated at 2 million).
- Its audio quality is among the lowest available, even on the Premium subscription (192Kbps).
- It doesn't really offer enough of an incentive for an upgrade compared to the others here.
- Not available outside the US.
Best for: Pandora Premium is of most interest to existing Pandora users who want to be able to pick exactly what they listen to, but almost no one else.
What else do you need to know?
Streaming radio versus on-demand
This guide covers on-demand music streaming services, and for that reason, we've purposefully left out services that only play music in a radio format. Until last year this list excluded Pandora, but now that the company also offers a Premium tier, it's included here. Slacker Radio, TuneIn and iHeartRadio, meanwhile, are services that play music stations based around a theme or artist, without you explicitly picking tracks.
Music lockers: Your MP3s in the cloud
Amazon was one of the first services to offer uploading your MP3 collection into the cloud, but this was officially discontinued in 2018. Meanwhile, the Apple and Google services listed above still allow you to combine your personal music collection with the streaming catalog, so if you've invested money in digital music over the years, that money isn't wasted. Those so-called 'music lockers' are available independently of the subscription services below, but also work in concert with them for subscribers of both.
Music catalog sizes compared
The number of songs offered by a music service used to be one of the main differentiators, but most now offer 30 million songs or more. However, depending on your favored genre, some of them have a more robust catalog that include many under-the-radar, indie or hip-hop artists. If you're musically inclined, constantly on the hunt for your favorite new band, a streaming service like Spotify or Tidal may be more up your alley. Users who are less ambitious about expanding their musical taste will be satisfied with the smaller catalogs Amazon Music Unlimited and Google Play Music offer. Apple Music is somewhere in the middle, offering a healthy mix of mainstream tunes and underground unknowns.
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There are a bunch of great apps you can install on your Mac—no question there. Separating amazing apps from must-have apps is the hard part, and we don’t want you to spend hours analyzing the Mac App Store (or scouring the web) to find the very best and most useful apps. We’ve made a list of champions across four categories: productivity; Internet and communications; music, photos, and video; and utilities.
The Lifehacker Pack is an annual snapshot of our favorite, essential applications for each of our favorite platforms. For our always-updating directory of all the best apps, be sure to bookmark our App Directory, where we profile amazing apps for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS each week—browser extensions, too.
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Alfred (free-ish)
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You can do a lot with Spotlight in macOS, but Alfred is still our favorite application launcher for yourMac. This easy-to-use tool can do so much more than pull up apps, files, and and keyword-driven automation. Plunk down £19 for the Powerpack, and you’ll get a clipboard history, access to workflows (that you can use to combine different actions, hotkeys, and keywords to do even more), hotkeys, 1Password integration, and even text expansion. In other words, paying for Alfred covers a number of activities that you’d have to download separate apps for—some featured in this very Lifehacker Pack. If you’re a new Alfred buyer and feeling little overwhelmed, be sure to check out our beginner’s guide to the app to get a handle on all the amazing things you can do with it.
If you don’t want to pay anything for an app launcher that has similar (but fewer) features under the hood, check out LaunchBar 6: free, if you don’t mind a little bother here and there. That, or consider tricking out Spotlight.
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Bear (free-ish)
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This cutely named app is one of the best note-taking apps you can get, with one small caveat—to synchronize notes between your devices or use custom themes, you’ll need to pony up $15/year for the app’s subscription. Otherwise, Bear is completely free to use (and looks great).
Within the app, you organize your notes by hashtags rather than unwieldy folders. You can also link notes to one another, which makes it a lot easier to chain together related thoughts instead of having to dump everything into one giant Super Note or remember that you had a few things to say, split into different notes, about a particular topic. Install Bear’s browser extension for Safari, Chrome, or Firefox, and you’ll be able to create new notes from whatever portion of a webpage you select. Also, Bear makes it easy to import notes from other services, including Apple Notes, so you really have no reason to not give it a spin.
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If you need to sync notes and don’t feel like paying for it, consider apps like OneNote, Google Keep, or Simplenote—all good choices, but none that can beat our Bear for usability and looks.
aText ($5)
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Who would have thought that text expansion, otherwise known as typing shortcuts, would be so expensive? While it’s true that you can create these kinds of shortcuts yourself directly within macOS, a full-fledged text expansion app is going to save you a lot of time and trouble. We like aText if for nothing else than its price—$5—given that much-loved alternatives like Textexpander ($3.33/mo on an annual plan; $45 for an older standalone) and TypeIt4Me 6 ($20) are anywhere from a bit to a lot more expensive.
As for aText, using it is simple. You set it up so that whenever you enter little words or phrases, the app drops in something else. So, you can finally correct that annoying “ducking” issue forevermore,
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Text expansion, also known as typing shortcuts, can save you hours of typing each day. You type a small word or combination of characters and it’ll expand into full, complex sentences that you often use. We love aText because it offers so many great features and only costs $5. If you haven’t yet jumped on the text expansion train, it’s time.
Todoist (free-ish)
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For simple note-taking and note-organizing, you can’t go wrong with Todoist. The app is completely free—unless you want to pay $39/yearly for more advanced features like automatic reminders, backups, themes, and an activity overview, to name a few features. Otherwise, the basics are great. It’s easy to create and synchronize tasks (and subtasks) across all of your Todoist-using devices, and browser extensions (including a Gmail addon) will help you make Todoist, and your growing task list, an ever-present part of your daily life. You won’t have that same kind of experience with plain ol’ Notes, especially if you’re trying to access your items on multiple platforms.
If you’re a big Google fan, we also love Google Tasks, which you’ll find directly integrated into the latest version of Gmail (and as a direct app for iOS and Android). You can also add to-do items into our note-taking app, Bear. The app Things 3 is a super-comprehensive task manager, but it costs quite a bit: $50 for Mac, $10 for iPhone, and $20 for your iPad. If the first item on your to-do list is “rob a bank,” however, it’s a gorgeous, fully featured app. And if you want to harass yourself about things you have to get done on your Mac, consider giving the quicky Effortless a try—which drops a countdown timer for your tasks directly into your Mac’s menu bar.
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Google Drive and Office Online (free)
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We don’t really have to introduce Google Drive, because Google’s offerings should be pretty well-known by everyone at this point. Docs and Sheets are great, free tools for creating and collaborating on documents and spreadsheets (of course), so much so, that a number of businesses solely rely on Google’s offerings instead of anything fancier or pricier.
If you’re a Microsoft convert, or you really love Word and Excel, you can access basic, online versions of both programs directly from Microsoft—no Office 365 subscription needed. If you’d rather work offline, Apple’s Pages and Numbers are the obvious, free choices, and LibreOffice is still the best open-source office app around.
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Airmail ($5)
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If you really don’t feel like fussing around with Mail, which is fine enough for most macOS users, consider giving Airmail a try. It’s been our favorite third-party mail app for some time given its low price and ample customization. It also hooks into a ton of other third-party apps and services, including Trello, Evernote, your favorite cloud storage service, and Apple’s mighty Workflow app (on iOS, that is).
If you don’t need power options and want easy, simple email, the free Spark is definitely worth checking out—especially since it can help you automatically sort your inbox to make it feel less like an ever-growing pile of things you’ll never read. Boxy 2 is great if you’re a Gmail user who wants the powers of its Inbox app on your desktop (and don’t mind paying $5 for it), and Mailplane 4 ($30) is a solid app if you prefer an interface that looks like the regular ol’ Gmail. Power users might want to investigate Wavebox ($20/year), which lets you access Gmail, Inbox, Outlook, and all sorts of other amazing web apps directly from one, easy-to-use interface.
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Internet and Communications
Google Chrome and Firefox Quantum (free)
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The browser you use is likely going to be dictated by the browser you’ve been using. In other words, if you’re a Google Chrome loyalist, it’ll probably take a lot to get you to switch over to Firefox Quantum (if you’re at all intrigued). And if you’ve been with Firefox from day one, you’re probably a lot less likely to want to move all of your bookmarks, extensions, and other settings over to Chrome.
So, which browser is best? It’s not so much that one excels over the other; it’s more important to say that both, finally, are pretty competitive. Depending on the benchmarks you look at—here are a bunch from ZDNet, for example—the browsers appear evenly matched for speed. I haven’t gone through and assessed the most-recent version of each, but I have used both Firefox Quantum and Google Chrome, and they both feel, well, fast. That said, Chrome still feels a bit like a hog when you’re trying to load a ton of tabs at once, but it’s pretty good about using less of your CPU and memory than other browsers.
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If you don’t like either, Opera is a viable alternative that’s actually pretty speedy in its own right—and we can’t complain about its built-in VPN, either, nor its awesome integration of WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram directly into an easy-to-launch sidebar.
Goofy and Franz (free)
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![Mac App For Amazon Music Mac App For Amazon Music](/uploads/1/2/6/3/126302580/122998546.jpg)
Years ago, it felt like everyone used one chat client to cover a bunch of services (ICQ, AIM, IRC, Jabber, et cetera). Most people nowadays probably have their favorites locked in: Messages for texting, Facebook Messenger for everything else, WhatsApp for sending government secrets or expiring pictures of your booty, Discord for any and all things gaming, Slack for all things not-gaming, et cetera. So, rather than go into detail with all the more obvious apps, we’ll highlight two unique ones.
Facebook Messenger, as you know, requires you to be on Facebook to use it. If I’m correct, you used to be able to essentially connect Facebook’s service to Messages itself, so you could send and receive your Facebook chats without having to have your browser open all the time. And if I’m right (again), you can no longer do that. Instead, you’ll want an app like Goofy, which basically drops the Facebook Messenger interface into a simple application that you can access from your desktop.
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We’re also fans of Franz, which offers the same treatment for a variety of other services (as well as Facebook Messenger). If you don’t want to keep 20 programs open to chat with people, Franz lets you access apps like Slack, WeChat, WhatsApp, Skype, Google Hangouts, and Facebook Messenger all from one, single interface.
Skype (free)
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Everyone also probably has a video chat app they love to use. And there are plenty to pick from: FaceTime, which comes baked into macOS by default; the aforementioned WhatsApp; Google Hangouts; Houseparty; and even good ol’ Facebook Messenger itself.
If you’re looking for a standalone messaging app that can do it all—for personal and business use, too—we still recommend Skype, which Microsoft recently overhauled. Its interface feels cleaner (and comes with a dark mode), it’s still as easy as ever to send text messages, video messages, and files to contacts, and you can even @ message your friends to get their attention.
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That said, we live in an time where most messaging apps have some kind of video or calling component—or so it feels. So if you need that human contact beyond simple texting and emoji, odds are good that you can already do it in the chat app you love.
Music, Photos, and Video
VLC (free)
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VLC is the best media player you can put on your Mac, period. It works perfectly with minimal fuss once you install it, and it can play almost any file you throw at it. If you’re a power user, it has a sea of options that would take the entire rest of this article to describe to you.
We enjoy all the improvements VideoLAN tosses VLC’s way, including its new support for 10-bit color depth and HDR, 360 videos, and improved decoding that allows less-powerful systems to play full 4K videos—even if that’s overkill for your Mac’s display resolution. You can drop a number of plug-ins and extensions into VLC to extend its functionality, and you can even use the app to stream videos to your Chromecast, if you’ve allowed Google to get a foothold into your Apple-only household.
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HandBrake (free)
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HandBrake is a free video conversion tool that, when coupled with an app like MakeMKV, will turn you into a ripping and converting powerhouse. HandBrake is pretty easy to use, but there are still plenty of settings that might give you a little anxiety when you first load the app. We have a guide to help out with that. Once you’ve mastered the basics, queuing up multiple videos and converting them to all kinds of different formats will feel second-nature. Also, don’t forget to grab VLC, mentioned above, so you can actually watch all of your creations.
Adobe Bridge CC, digiKam, and Google Backup and Sync (free)
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Apple’s standard Photos app does a pretty decent job organizing your sprawling photo, thanks to collections, tags, and the ability to view photos by when (and where) they were taken. You can even do a little light editing, too.
If you need a little more organizational oomph, consider Adobe Bridge CC—completely free to use, even though you might have assumed it was a paid app. You can’t do a lot of editing in Bridge (well, any retouching, really), but what it lacks in tools, it makes up for in data. You can easily see all sorts of compelling metadata about the images you’ve taken, and organizing them via ratings, keywords, and labels is easy. Well, setting it up is easy. Actually organizing your sprawling photo library might take a little time, but it’ll be worth it in the end, trust me.
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The open-source app digiKam has organizing, editing, and a UI that’s fairly similar to what you’d find in Adobe Bridge CC. If you’re not used apps like Adobe’s Lightroom, digiKam might feel a bit advanced—possibly even overkill for your needs—but it’s a powerful app for pro users that would rather spend their cash on camera hardware than more software.
Google Backup and Sync isn’t a photo organizing app itself, but it’s what you’ll want to use to get your photos uploaded into Google Photos—a great online tool and compelling alternative to iCloud as a result of the unlimited storage space you get for photos. It’s easy to create collections and share photos with others (Google will even make suggestions for you based around where and when you’ve taken your shots). And we also like that you can get pretty creative with your searches when sorting and organizing your sprawling photo library.
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Spotify ($10) and Amazon Music Unlimited ($8)
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Which music streaming service you pick is largely a matter of preference: one might carry your favorite band, one might have an app interface you greatly prefer, one might have all your friends on it. If you aren’t into Apple Music for these, or any other valid reasons, Spotify is the next obvious choice (sorry Tidal). It has a huge library, its social features are great, and we love the thought it puts into its playlists—human-curated and automatically generated.
If you’re already an Amazon Prime subscriber, you should also consider checking out the company’s Amazon Music Unlimited service. You’ll have to pay $8 on top of your Prime subscription, but that still makes it slightly cheaper than an Apple Music ($10) or Spotify Premium ($10).
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Honey miner app for mac free. Honeyminer makes mining and earning money simple for anyone with a computer. Honeyminer is brand new and may not be recognized by your computer's security software. Most will not alert you, if they do it's usually pretty easy, just press 'allow' when prompted.
Pixelmator ($30) and Affinity Photo ($50)
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Pixelmator is one of the best image editors on the Mac, but it’s no longer the only game in town. Though its $30 asking price might seem high, it’s a bargain considering all the incredible editing tools you get to play with—rivaling more comprehensive apps like Adobe’s Photoshop CC for a fraction of the price. (And if you want features like Touch Bar support, automatic color adjustments, and advanced compression—as well as HEIF exporting—you’ll want to pick up the pricier Pixelmator Pro for $60)
Affinity Photo is a compelling, albeit costlier alternative to Pixelmator that’ll set you back $50 for a professional-grade suite of tools, including full RAW editing and a UI that looks a lot like the Photoshop you might prefer (but don’t want to pay a subscription to get). That includes support for “Personas,” which mimics Photoshop’s Workspaces feature by allowing you to set your screen’s many options and buttons based on whatever it is you’re working on—if you prefer one set of tools for a simple editing and another set of tools for something more complex, like pre-processing images for print.
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If you’re looking for basic image editing and your Mac’s built-in Photos app isn’t enough, you can always give the open-source app GIMP a try. What it lacks in polish, it makes up for in price.
Utilities
Dropbox, Google Drive, and Mega (free-ish)
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These cloud storage services should all be household names at this point. We’ve covered their costs, and their peers’ pricing models, pretty extensively. Which one you go with depends on your budget, preferences, and needs. Dropbox is a great, all-encompassing solution for cloud storage, but you’ll need to get creative to get more than 2GB of free space with the service. Google Drive is a no-brainer, since you get 15GB of space and can easily synchronize files to your laptop or desktop to work on them offline.
With Mega, you get 50GB of free cloud storage to play with and a handy app (MEGAsync) that you can use across your Windows and Mac computers. Mega does have an annoying transfer quota of around 1GB or so in a 24-hour time span, but that’s a small price to pay for a free 50 gigs. Take that, thumbdrives
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qBittorrent or Deluge (free)
Is There An Eq App For Amazon Music For Iphone
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Ever since Transmission had all those malware issues some time ago, and uTorrent filled its installer full of crap and cryptocurrency miners, we’ve been on the hunt for a simple BitTorrent app, and we’ve settled on qBittorrent. It’s an open-source downloading tool that should look pretty familiar for anyone who has used an app like uTorrent or Transmission previously. No big surprises with qBittorrent’s UI or features. We like that the app is ad- and crap-free, is completely open source, and can automatically quit or shut down your PC when your download is done. Deluge is a good BitTorrent app alternative, but the app hasn’t been updated since May of 2017 (when we wrote this), and we prefer something with more active development.
Backblaze ($5/mo)
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If you want to keep your important files on the cloud, rather than a Time Machine backup, that’s fine—you might not have spare storage sitting around, after all. Backblaze is our new top pick for backup services, since it costs half the price of Crashplan (previously great) and does all the same things. Install the app, pick the files and folders you want to back up (encrypted, no less), and hope you never have to use the service’s restoration features.
The Unarchiver (free)
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If you have file archives that your Mac can’t open, give The Unarchiver a shot at them. It’s free, it’s quick, and it does a good job of opening that which your Mac cannot open itself. It also works directly out of Finder, so you won’t have to (annoyingly) open up a separate app before you take a crack at your archives.
Amazon Music App For Mac Os
A good alternative is Keka, which is also free, also opens a bunch of different archive formats, and can even be faster than The Unarchiver depending on the archive format and size. If you have issues with one app, try the other, and you might find that it does a better job extracting your files.
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(This story originally ran in July 2016, written by Alan Henry. It was updated in July 2018 by David Murphy.)