10 of My Favorite Mac Apps Are Discounted for Black Friday

Credit: Mar Fernandez/Shutterstock

One of the best things about using a Mac is that there's a top-quality app for almost everything. This Black Friday, plenty of Mac apps are on sale, making it a great time to grab a copy of some of my favorites. I'm going to highlight great deals on some Mac apps I use every day, and others that I've been waiting to buy. 

Your Mac ships with a good screenshot tool, but Cleanshot X makes it a lot better. This app is well-designed, has all the features you'll need from a screenshot tool, and it's configurable enough to appeal to power users too. You can use it to take screenshots and screen recordings, but the real fun is in setting up simple workflows that work for you. Cleanshot X lets you decide what happens after you click a picture. For some, this means just copying the picture to the clipboard, but for others, it could be immediately uploading to the cloud and copying the link. You can also use this app to take scrolling screenshots, configure a keyboard shortcut to capture text from images, and much, much more.

This Black Friday, Cleanshot X is available at a 50% discount if you buy it via a third-party bundle website. (You can buy it individually or as part of a bundle.) Note that a Cleanshot license guarantees one year of updates from the date of purchase. After that, you stop receiving updates but the app will continue to work. 

Discounted price: $14.50 (was $29)

Get it here: Unclutter App Bundle

TextSniper: Copy text from images

If Cleanshot X is overkill for your needs, you could consider getting a simpler screenshot tool for your Mac. TextSniper is a fast and lightweight app to copy text from images, PDFs, and other apps or sites that disable copying. You press a keyboard shortcut, drag over the area where the text is, and the app copies it for you. It can also copy text from QR codes and barcodes. For Black Friday, TextSniper is 60% off.

Discounted price: $3.20 (was $7.99)

Get it here: Text Sniper (use code BF2024 at checkout)

LittleSnitch: See which apps are phoning home

LittleSnitch is one of my favorite firewall apps for the Mac. It's got a great interface that makes it easy for anyone to see which apps are connecting to the internet. You can use it to stop apps from sending data back to servers in other countries, or even to stop apps from checking for updates. Even if you don't want to use it to block any apps, it's definitely worth it to monitor connections on your computer. As I wrote earlier, you should definitely use a firewall on your Mac, but not Apple's default option, which is rather lacking. This Black Friday, Little Snitch is 30% off.

Discounted price: $42 (was $63)

Get it here: Little Snitch

Link Unshortener: Know what's behind short links

Indie app developer Jeff Johnson specializes in making great Safari extensions—and for Black Friday, some of those are on sale. Link Unshortener in particular is really useful. You can set it as your default browser if you want, which means that whenever you click a link in Safari, this extension will follow it through all redirects and reveal the destination URL. It can also remove all tracking parameters and let you choose which of your browsers you want to open the link with. Even if you don't use it as the default browser, you can use Link Unshortener to quickly expand all shortened URLs. This extension is 50% off for Black Friday.

Sale duration: November 25-December 8

Discounted price: $3.99 (was $7.99)

Get it here: Link Unshortener 

Things 3: A polished to-do list app

Things 3 on the Mac is my favorite to-do list app. It's got a beautiful interface and it allows you to quickly create all kinds of to-do lists. On the Mac, Things 3's keyboard shortcuts allow you to control pretty much everything in the app without using your mouse at all. There's even a global shortcut (Option-Space) to add anything to Things at any point. Since its 2017 release, Things 3 has only gotten better and more polished. The developers don't offer subscriptions but instead, they charge you for each version of the app separately. This means that if you want the app on all four platforms—Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Vision Pro—then it'll be four purchases in all. All these versions are 30% off for Black Friday.

Sale duration: November 25 through December 2

Discounted price: $34.99 (30% off, usual price $49.99)

Get it here: Things 3 (iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Vision Pro)

Keyboard Maestro: Automate almost everything

Few tools are as powerful as Keyboard Maestro on the Mac. The app lets you create macros to automate almost every action, and you can do this without any programming knowledge. You can use it to automatically fill web forms, make some apps quit when you launch a certain app, or even arrange all the windows of an app in your preferred way whenever that app is launched. If you're even remotely interested in Mac automation, you'll find this app useful. For Black Friday, it's 50% off.

Discounted price: $18 (was $36)

Get it here: Keyboard Maestro

DisplayBuddy: Control external monitors easily

If you connect your Mac to external displays, you'll find it useful to try DisplayBuddy. The app lets you control your external monitor's volume and brightness using your Mac's media keys. It also lets you create presets for various tasks, such as watching movies, gaming, etc. You can use this to change multiple monitor settings in one click. This app is 20% off for Black Friday.

Discounted price: $14.24 (was $18.99)

Get it here: DisplayBuddy (use code INDIEGOODIES at checkout)

AirBuddy 2: The best way to control AirPods on Mac

I recently started using AirBuddy 2 to control my AirPods from my Mac and it's been a game changer. I can now reliably connect to my AirPods, check its battery level, and use keyboard shortcuts to switch between noise cancellation and transparency modes. These features alone are good enough for me to use it regularly, but the app has many more useful ones, including low battery alerts. It's also available at a 50% discount for Black Friday.

Discounted price: $6.5 (was $13)

Get it here: AirBuddy 2

Parallels Desktop 20: Run Windows on your Mac

Parallels Desktop 20 lets you run Windows on your Mac. It allows you to open Windows in a separate window, which means that it's quite easy to still access macOS whenever you want to. You can even do things like open a USB drive in Windows or on macOS, depending on where it's needed. The app is 25% off for Black Friday.

Discounted price (subscription): $74.99 per year (was $99.99 per year)

Discounted price (one-time purchase): $97.49 (was $129.99)

Get it here: Parallels Desktop 20

DaisyDisk: Free up storage space

If your Mac is running out of space, you should use DaisyDisk. This app shows you exactly what's occupying space on your computer and how you can free up space on the computer. DaisyDisk is a useful tool that's been around for many years and this Black Friday, it's available at 50% off.

Discounted price: $5 (was $10)

Get it here: DaisyDisk