My 12 go-to apps for opening data files

Happy Thanksgiving! These are my 12 apps I use for opening data files or solving problems with my Mac.

 

1. Commander 1, a free dual-pane file manager for your Mac, It has an in-app purchase to add features.

2. Omnidisksweeper, a handy app for showing you what takes up so much room on your hard drive/SSD.

3. LibreOffice, a donation ware office suite that opens up old and weird formats you will encounter (Word for Mac 5.1, anyone?)

4. Firefox and Chrome, for when Safari doesn’t work. (I love Safari, but not every Web site works with it, though)

5. Alfred or Quicksilver Once you use a keyboard app launcher, you’ll wonder why you spent so much time with the mouse!

 6. Kindle. For all those books you want to get from Amazon, but haven’t the physical space for! And they have lots of cheap and free books!

 7. Parallels Desktop Lite. For keeping around Linux and macOS (but not Windows!) on your Mac

8. VLC media player. For those media files that Quicktime and iTunes won’t play 

 9. Synergy (not free) If you need to control several computers from one keyboard and mouse, this is the app, especially if they’re not all the same kind of computer!

10. Super-Duper! O Carbon Copy Cloner Invaluable cloning apps for making sure you have a backup you can boot from in an emergency. Well worth the license fee

11. Onyx (make sure you get the one for your version of macOS!) Best free utility for keeping macOS in tip-top shape Here’s how to use it for optimize your Mac

12. XnConvert. An invaluable tool for converting image files from old formats 

 

Tom Briant

Editor, MacValley Blog