We designed macOS with advanced technologies that work together to constantly monitor, encrypt, update — and ultimately keep your Mac safer. And with macOS Mojave available as a free upgrade, it’s never been easier to protect your Mac.*
In Microsoft Outlook 2016 for Mac running on Mac OS X Yosemite (10.10) or later versions, you cannot set Outlook as the default application. In Outlook Preferences, under General, you enable the Make Outlook the default application for e-mail, calendar, and contacts option. This all Mac essential software will compatible with Mac, MacBook Pro, MacBook Pro Retina, and MacBook Air running on MacOS Mojave, OX X Mavericks and before, Yosemite and newly. Even you have any other suggestion for others top Best Mac software list and app, Spread text with us.
Apple T2 chip.
The next generation of security.
The Apple T2 chip — featured on iMac Pro and the 2018 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar — keeps your Mac safer than ever. The Secure Enclave coprocessor in the Apple T2 chip provides the foundation for Touch ID, secure boot, and encrypted storage capabilities. Touch ID gives you a seamless way to use your fingerprint as a passcode and make purchases with Apple Pay. Secure boot helps ensure that you are running trusted operating system software from Apple, while the Apple T2 chip automatically encrypts your storage drive.
Apple helps you keep your Mac secure with software updates.
![Free email program Free email program](/uploads/1/3/3/3/133300948/471649013.jpg)
The best way to keep your Mac secure is to run the latest software. When new updates are available, macOS sends you a notification. Just accept the updates with a click and they download automatically. macOS checks for new updates every day, so it’s easy to always have the latest and safest version.
FileVault 2 encrypts your data.
With FileVault 2, your data is safe and secure — even if your Mac falls into the wrong hands. FileVault 2 encrypts the entire drive on your Mac, protecting your data with XTS-AES 128 encryption. And on Mac systems with an Apple T2 chip, FileVault 2 keys are created and protected by the Secure Enclave. Want to start fresh or give your Mac to someone else? FileVault 2 makes it easy to clean data off your Mac. Instant wipe removes the encryption keys from your Mac — making the data completely inaccessible — then proceeds with a thorough wipe of all data from the disk.
Runtime protections
defend at the core.
The technically sophisticated runtime protections in macOS work at the very core of your Mac to help keep your system safe. Technologies like XD (execute disable), Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), and Kernel ASLR make it difficult for malware to run or do harm by subverting memory or other apps. System Integrity Protection (SIP) ensures that even with root access to your system, malware cannot change critical system files and settings. On macOS Mojave, developers can opt in to an Enhanced Runtime that extends these runtime protections to their apps. And on Mac computers with an Apple T2 chip, secure boot ensures that only legitimate macOS operating system software loads on your Mac.
Your Mac stays on the alert.
Innocent-looking files downloaded over the Internet may contain dangerous malware in disguise. That’s why files you download using Safari, Mail, and Messages are screened to determine if they contain applications. If they do, macOS alerts you, then warns you the first time you open one. You decide whether to open the application or cancel the attempt. And if a file contains software identified as malicious, macOS offers to move it to the Trash.
macOS and iCloud can help find your missing Mac.
macOS and iCloud can help keep your Mac safe even when you misplace it. Sign in to iCloud.com from another computer or use the Find My iPhone app on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to locate your missing Mac on a map. If your Mac is offline when you try to find it, you can ask to receive an email as soon as it makes a Wi‑Fi connection. You can also display a message on your Mac screen so whoever has it knows how to get it back to you. And until your Mac is back in safe hands, you can set a passcode lock remotely, suspend Apple Pay, or even initiate a remote wipe to delete your personal data and restore your Mac to its factory settings.
Download safe apps from the Mac App Store.
Apple reviews each app before it’s accepted by the store, and if there’s ever a problem with an app, Apple can quickly remove it from the store. All apps from the App Store are sandboxed to protect your Mac and data from harmful actions.
Sandboxing helps contain malicious code.
The App Sandbox in macOS helps ensure that apps do only what they’re intended to do. App sandboxing isolates apps from the critical system components of your Mac, your data, and your other apps. Even if an app is compromised by malicious software, sandboxing automatically blocks it to keep your computer and your information safe. macOS delivers sandboxing protection for Safari, Mail, Messages, FaceTime, Calendar, Contacts, Photos, Notes, Reminders, Photo Booth, Quick Look previews, Game Center, Dictionary, Font Book, and the Mac App Store.
Gatekeeper makes downloading apps from the Internet safer.
Gatekeeper gives you more control over what you install on your Mac. It allows you to run apps from the Mac App Store as well as those from other sources that are signed with a Developer ID from Apple. The Developer ID allows Gatekeeper to block apps created by malware developers and to verify that apps haven’t been tampered with. With macOS Mojave, developers can upload their apps to Apple for a security check. And now you’ll see a streamlined dialog when you first launch these apps.
Stay in control of what data apps can access.
macOS puts you in control of which apps can access your calendar, contacts, photos, location, reminders, and private system data like your Messages history, Mail database, and Safari data — as well as your camera and mic.
Intelligent Tracking Prevention.
Remember when you looked at that green mountain bike online? And then saw annoying green mountain bike ads everywhere you browsed? Safari uses machine learning to identify advertisers and others who track your online behavior, and removes the cross‑site tracking data they leave behind. So your browsing stays your business. And now Safari keeps embedded content such as Like buttons, Share buttons, and comment widgets from tracking you without your permission. We know you’ll like that.
Fingerprinting defense.
When you browse the web, the characteristics of your device can be used by advertisers to create a “fingerprint” to follow you online. Safari now thwarts this by only sharing a simplified system profile, making it more difficult for data companies to identify and track you.
Stronger passwords are harder to crack.
The strongest passwords are long and complex. Creating passwords like this for every site can be tedious. But Safari makes it easy by automatically creating and storing strong passwords for you, then autofilling your passwords across all your Apple devices. And in Safari preferences, you can see any passwords that have been used more than once and easily update them.
To further increase security for your Apple ID, Apple recommends that you turn on two-factor authentication. With two-factor authentication, your account can be accessed only on devices you trust, like your iPhone, iPad, or Mac. So when you want to sign in with your Apple ID on a new device for the first time, you need to provide two pieces of information — your password and the six-digit verification code that’s automatically displayed on your trusted devices.
iCloud Keychain securely stores your passwords, punctuation, and numbers.
Once you have a unique, strong password, iCloud Keychain will remember it so you don’t have to. iCloud Keychain stores your user names and passwords and syncs them between the devices you choose — Mac, iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. When you visit a site, iCloud Keychain will fill in your login information to give you access to your online accounts, and it can also autofill your credit card information when you’re checking out online. And your information is always protected with robust, 256-bit AES encryption.
Antiphishing protects you from fraudulent websites.
Phishing is a form of attack in which online thieves try to acquire sensitive information such as user names, passwords, and credit card details by creating fake websites that look like sites from legitimate companies — like your bank or a social networking site. The antiphishing technology in Safari can protect you from such scams by detecting these fraudulent websites. And if you try to visit a suspicious site, Safari disables the page and displays an alert warning you about its suspect nature.
iCloud Security
Learn more about iCloud SecurityThere 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. https://sceneclever118.weebly.com/blog/screen-sharing-program-for-mac.
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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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).
Free Email Program
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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)
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Best Mac Email Program For Yosemite 2018
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)
Mac chat program for facebook and google. Advertisement
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.
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.
Mac E-mail Program
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(This story originally ran in July 2016, written by Alan Henry. It was updated in July 2018 by David Murphy.)