Mac OS FAQ

Applications and Utilities

Updated: 22 September 2024

Mac OS comes with the usual sort of applications programs to play around with and these are listed under Applications and there are various utilities. These programs are listed below with more information for the new stuff.

Applications

App Store	Main application to browse, search, buy and download Mac Apps. Includes an Update tab for latest app updates.
Automator	Create automation tasks with AppleScript
Books	Manage Book store for electronic books or audio books
Calculator	Program to work out simple or complex calculations. It a scientific mode for more complex calculations.
Calendar	Calendar to organise your life
Chess	Latest 3D chess game
Clock	Display a clock to show time
Contacts	List of people with names, numbers, addresses and birthdays etc. Formally called Address Book.
Dictionary	Look up words in the dictionary or thesaurus
Facetime	Contact family and friends with video and audio calls
Find My	Seach for your devices e.g. iPod, iPhone, iPad, Macbook etc.
Font Book	Displays and manages fonts. Fonts can be OpenType or TrueType fonts.
Freeform	To perform sketches for a project, design a mood board or brainstorm ideas. (new)
Home	Control and more your Home using Siri and Apple watch.
Image Capture	Application to fetch images from Digital Cameras or Scanners.
iPhone Mirroring	Able to view your iPhone screen on your Mac.
Launchpad	Create a window to launch your apps from like a phone or pad.
Mail	Electronic Mail program
Maps	Display map of local area, national or international locations
Messages	Contact friends and family using text or images.
Mission Control	Allows user to quickly locate an open window, hide other windows and show desktop. Its a combination of Dashboard, Expose and Spaces.
Music	Manage music (replaces iTunes)
News	Display current news via Apple. Option to display news from newspapers too.
Notes	Make temporary notes of text, photos, videos, a url and so on.
passwords	Manage
Photo Booth	Allows users to take photos of themselves from built in camera.
Photos	Display and manage your photos
Podcasts	Manage short podcasted videos
Preview	Display images or PDF documents
Quicktime Player	Plays video and sound files including MOV files
Reminders	Lists of to do, projects, groceries, jobs and so on
Safari	New web browser with Reading List, Pinned Sites, Apply Pay, Picture in Picture etc.
Shortcuts	Create shortcuts for everyday tasks e.g send messages, open a app, play music, select menu, call someone, open file etc.
Siri	Application for voice control of the Mac. Introduced in macos Sierra.
Stickies	Create post it notes on your desktop to save quick notes.
Stocks	Display company stock information.
System Settings	Change user and system preferences or settings
TextEdit	Text editor for plain text, rich text or doc files
Time Machine	Backup program to store passkeys, code, Wi-Fi credentials, security
Tips	Tips about howo to get the best out of your mac and its apps
TV	Manage Films and TV Programmes
Voice Memos	Create recording on your iPhone, iPad and Mac and share them.
Weather	Display temperature, rain forecasts, alerts, hourly and 10 day forecasts, air pollution, wind, UV, Sunrise/set, moon etc (new)

Other Tools

Activity Monitor	Monitor and display information on CPU, Applications, Disks, Memory and Network
AirPort Utility	Set up a Wi-Fi network using AirPort Base Station
Audio MIDI Setup	Configure audio and MIDI devices
BlueTooth File Exchange	Enables two people to share a computer using a remote connection (Get or Give Assistance)
Boot Camp Assistant	Install Windows on your Mac
ColorSync Utility	Manage color profiles and filters for Apple's PDF workflow or filters to PDF files
Console	System and application log viewer
Digital Color Meter	Finds the colour value of any colour on your display.
Disk Utility	Manage disks, disk images and RAID sets.
Grapher	Visualize and analyze implicit and explicit equations.
Keychain Access	Stores user names, passwords and certificates. See new Passwords app.
Migration Assistant	Migrate documents to another Mac or PC or disk.
Print Centre	Display print queues for any printers (new)
Screen Sharing	Share your screen with your colleagues (new)
Screenshot	Grabs portions of screen, captures and saves to a file
Script Editor	Creates tools or apps with Apple Script or Javascript.
System Information	Shows hardware and software information about the Mac.
Terminal	Opens a bash command prompt window
VoiceOver Utility	Screen reader, which reads text on screen and output as audio.

Apps from App Store

Apple Remote Desktop	Access and manage other Apple Mac computers.
GarageBand	Create music with software instruments, presets, guitar, dummer and voice. It is also available for purchase from the App Store.
Ink	Allows you to add sketches and handwritten text into documents.
Keynote	Create presentations
MacOS	Download current or previous versions of MacOS.
Microsoft 365	Microsoft office suite.
Microsoft Remote Desktop	Access Windows computers remotely using RDP.
Numbers	Create spreadsheets
Pages	Create documents
Parallels Client	Access workplace computers over the internet.
Parallels Desktop	Run virtual machines running MacOS, Windows or Linux.
Stuffit Expander	Extract files from stuffit files or other archive formats.
The Unarchiver	Extract files from archive files like ZIP, TAR,Gz etc.
UTM	Run virtual machines using QEmu.
X Code	Develop new apps for iPhone, iPad or Mac.
Zappiti Media Center	Play movies, tv and photos from one center. See also Kodi.

Old Applications

Dashboard	Holds secondary desktop to display small apps called Widgets
DVD Player	Plays DVD discs in the internal or an external optical drive.
iBooks	Read latest best sellers or study text books (see Books)
iMovie	A video editing suite for Mac (upto El Capitan). It can catpure video via the Firewire or USB ports.
iTunes	Get and play music from your music collection or from the store (up to Mojave). See Music, TV, Podcasts.
Grab	Capture window or screen contains to an image file. See Screenshot.
X11	X-Windows implementation for Mac (aka XQuartz)