100 Best Mac Apps Of Year 2012

Another year has gone by and it’s been a good one for OS X apps. Continuing our tradition from previous years, here is a list of some the best apps we covered during the last one. 2012 was split between two versions of OS X; Lion and Mountain Lion. Each of these versions had their own share of features that inspired developers to create apps. We came across a fair number of Mac apps meant to deal with the problems users experienced when they upgraded to Mountain Lion. Apart from these OS-centric apps, we reviewed the usual utilities for everyday work; productivity apps, music players, to-do lists managers, system tweakers and more. With the new year now in full swing, you might want to see if a little something from last year will help you enjoy a better user experience.

1. Sleep No More (Easily delay OS X Mountain Lion system & display sleep by set time)

2. Now Playing (Get a “Now Playing” alert from iTunes in Notification Center)

3. Hiss (Reroute Growl alerts to OS X Mountain Lion Notification Center)

4. Blue Butler (Have your Mac Shut Down, Logout or more when a Bluetooth device is in/out of range)

5. Ripcorder Screen (Record multiple Mac screens with highlighted clicks and no time limitations)

6. Nitro (Simple OS X to-do list app that syncs to Dropbox & Ubuntu One)

7. Should I Sleep (Keep Mac display awake while you’re in front of the webcam)

8. Any Send (Share files between Macs over WiFi from the Menu Bar)

9. Eggy (Use keyboard shortcuts to tweet, update Facebook & send messages in OS X)

10. iSnap (Get Windows 7 Aero snap / snap-to-side & shake-to-minimize features on Mac)

11. Desktop Groups Lite (A Fences-like desktop organizer for Mac OS X)

12. Cappuccino (An elegant Google Reader client that lets you read, manage & share feeds)

13. Pocket (Formerly Read It Later; lets you bookmark web articles and strips them of website theme and ads for clutter-free offline reading)

14. Found (Desktop search for Dropbox, Google Drive & Gmail files)

15. Flutter (Play/pause iTunes or Spotify with hand gestures in front of the webcam)

16. CleanMyDrive (Remove DS_Store & Thumbs.db from mounted drives for clutter-free cross-platform file transfer)

17. CornerClick (Assign any app, file or action to Hot Corners in Mac)

18. iClapper (Clap to control iTunes or trigger any action)

19. Launch it! (Open multiple apps & websites with a single keyboard shortcut)

20. Exhaust (Login items manager that lets you set apps launch delay & quit interval)

21. Grooveshark Player (Enjoy Grooveshark’s web interface on your Mac desktop)

22. iClouDrive (Sync files between Macs through iCloud the Dropbox/iDisk Way)

23. Amelita (Use context menu options from the Mac Menu Bar)

24. Hot Mouse Flower (A hotkey-triggered virtual keyboard for OS X)

25. Collections (Desktop viewer & editor for Google Docs & Instagram)

26. ReFind (A bookmarking app for your frequently-accessed folders)

27. Right Zoom (Get Windows-like maximize behavior in Mac)

28. Rename (Edit file names & add Spotlight comments in bulk)

29. Tagit (Easily add tags to files/folders, search exclusively by tags)

30. CheatSheet (View a complete list of keyboard shortcuts for any app)

31. Simplayfy (Search music & control iTunes from the Menu Bar)

32. Ctrl Alt Delete (Quickly view all active apps & background processes and force-quit them)

33. Snip (Region-centric screenshot tool that lets you add text & shapes to your snaps)

34. SlideMode (SlideMode makes it easier to select text with the trackpad using a hotkey and two finger swipe)

35. Mashduo (Compare iTunes libraries & export a list of missing songs)

36. InsomniaX (Disable sleep on idle or lid close while on battery or AC)

37. MagicPrefs (Modify what apple magic mouse & trackpad gestures do)

38. ShowOrHide (View hidden files without using terminal command)

39. Booknote Importer (Save bookmarks to an Evernote notebook)

40. SocialShoutings (Post to Twitter & Facebook in one go)

41. Boxerapp (Import and play any DOS game on your Mac)

42. SyncDifferent (Sync files between as many folders as you want)

43. Chaperone (Track time spent on tasks & the apps used to do them)

44. CryptoDock (Free encryption tool that lets you set a unique decryption key for each file)

45. AmbiLauncher Lite (Launch any app or script by moving the mouse over left edge of screen)

46. TunesTEXT (View & edit lyrics of iTunes tracks and embed them into songs)

47. iConvert (Convert videos, extract audio & send them to iTunes)

48. Broomstick (Hide & reorder third-party Mac apps’ Menu Bar icons)

49. Cloak (Secure untrusted/public internet connections)

50. Maintenance (Run system optimization & cleaning and rebuild tasks in one go)

51. File Viewer (File viewer for 60 audio, video, image, web and text file formats)

52. Commenteer (Add comments to all files in a folder at once)

53. TinkerTool (Tweak Mac Lion default tools, UI elements & overall usage)

54. XtraFinder (Adds several useful file & folder options to Mac Finder)

55. Todoist (A simple project & task organizer for your desktop)

56. Screensaver + Free (Lock screen replacement with pattern unlock that supports mouse input)

57. Notifications for Facebook (View & access Facebook notifications from the Menu Bar)

58. SmoothCursor (Set different acceleration for mouse & trackpad)

59. TopHat Folders Menu Lite (Access your favorite & most used folders from Menu Bar)

60. DropboxAppSync (Sync app data across systems through Dropbox)

61. Lock Me Now (Use an easy keyboard shortcut to lock your screen)

62. SmartStop (Automatically stop and resume iTunes playback when headphones are unplugged and plugged back in respectively)

63. LaunchOnTime (Schedule apps to launch at a specified time)

64. InstantPhotoColor (Color images without losing their details)

65. iFileX (Easier way to search files by name, size, modification & creation date)

66. iTweaX (Tweak hidden Mac OS X features & run maintenance procedures)

67. UpShot (Upload screenshots from OS X to your public Dropbox folder)

68. Slate (Rearrange windows to a previously recorded layout)

69. Intelligent Scissors (Remove photobombers & unwanted items from your photos)

70. Grandview (A completely distraction-free writing pad for the easily distracted)

71. Plaster (Easily set any image as a folder’s icon)

72. MovieShare (Wirelessly copy videos between Macs & iOS devices with ease)

Paid Apps

1. Unclutter (Get an omnipresent clipboard, file storage area & notepad)

2. iDesktop (Group different files on each desktop space in Mac)

3. Cream (Compact RSS reader with Instapaper, Pocket & Readability support)

4. Replacr (Simply drag and drop multiple TXT and RTF files to find & replace text in them)

5. Multi Monitor Wallpaper (Crop, stretch & set a single background across multiple Mac displays)

6. Simple ShutDown Timer (Schedule Mac shutdown, restart & sleep)

7. Desktop Tidy (Clean files from desktop & sort into folders according to format or age)

8. CloudPlay (Search & play music from iTunes, YouTube and SoundCloud right from the Menu Bar)

9. Flv Crunch (Audio/video converter with a unique crop feature)

10. Precise Screenshot (Create a pixel-precise frame for taking screenshots)

11. Disk Scope (View per library/directory storage usage in Mac)

12. PDF Toolkit (Compress PDFs, extract text and images in different sizes)

13. Windownaut (Allows excellent window arrangement via keyboard shortcuts)

14. Mailsum (Email client that tells you how well you handle your mail)

15. Scrapbook (Clipboard manager that remembers copied items even after system restart)

16. ReSpaceApp (Provides easier desktop spaces navigation & window management)

17. Snapheal (One of the best tools out there to retouch & remove unwanted objects from images)

18. HyperPDF (Magazine reader that mimics iPad’s reading experience)

19. Instant (Add Instagram-like filters to your images)

20. Nifty (Create custom, global shortcuts for various app-specific functions)

21. Lock Your Screen (The mothership of screen lock apps for Mac)

22. App Zap (Completely remove apps & all files associated with them)

23. Dammit (Speed dial to open stacks of apps, files or folders)

24. Gemini (Scan for and clean duplicate files & folders from your system)

25. iRamDisk (Create virtual RAM disks in Mac & mount as drives)

26. Mindful (View the day’s iCal events & reminders on the desktop)

27. HardwareGrowler (Displays hardware & network change notifications)

28. File Storage Companion (Transfer files from Mac to iOS over Wi-Fi without using iTunes)

So which of the lot are your favorites? Did you find any apps that didn’t know about? Let us know in the comments if you feel we’ve left anything out.

You might also want to check out our other end-of-year compilations:

150 Best Windows Apps Of 2012

35 Best Windows 8 Store Of 2012

150 Best Android Apps Of 2012

100 Best iOS Apps Of 2012

50 Best Cydia Tweaks Of 2012

40 Best Windows Phone Apps Of 2012

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Fatima Wahab

Fatima has been writing for AddictiveTips for six years. She began as a junior writer and has been working as the Editor in Chief since 2014. Fatima gets an adrenaline rush from figuring out how technology works, and how to manipulate it. A well-designed app, something that solves a common everyday problem and looks

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