10 Productivity Apps For Your Mac-Based Home Office

If you work at a home-based office like I do, you no doubt spend a significant amount of time getting things done on your Mac. While I have already written about the advantages of using a standup desk, there are also several important and general productivity apps for Mac, for almost any type of workflow you engage in.

Though there is no robot application (yet!) that can do all the work for me, the following are 10 of the most useful free or low-cost productivity apps that I use on a daily or regular basis. These applications not only save me time but in many cases help me work more efficiently.

Power Up Your Mac With Advanced BetterTouchTool Automations

I started using BetterTouchTool back in 2011, and since then it has become one of the top three Mac applications (the other two are Keyboard Maestro and TextExpander) for boosting my productivity and streamlining my workflow.

BetterTouchTool is a free application that allows you to use finger gestures with your Magic Mouse, MacBook Trackpad and Magic Trackpad to activate keyboard shortcuts, move and resize windows, launch applications and URLs, select windows, and add functions to applications.

Please Check an overview of BetterTouchTool’s main features and how to get started using it. Though BTT can be used by any Mac user, it does require some time to setup and configure gestures that you can remember and are not awkward to use. The following tips will help users who are familiar with the app get more out of some of its more advanced features.

Automate Everything On Your Mac with Keyboard Maestro [Mac]

I’ve written several articles about Mac automation, including a MUO Automation Guide on how to get started with Apple’s Automator and the built-in OS X features for creating smart folders, playlists, albums, and mailboxes. But next to the application called Hazel, which I also recently reviewed, the classic automation program Keyboard Maestro ($36.00) is my most used application for getting things done on my Mac. You can download it for a 30-day free trial.

For what it does, Keyboard Maestro for Mac is modestly priced, and in my experience very reliable. Keyboard Maestro is similar to Automator in which you set up macros to perform tasks and steps that you perform manually. For example, almost any steps you take – to launch, hide, or quit applications; open folders and files; download webpages; input copied text; rate iTunes songs; email a family member; copy or paste a URL – can be done faster by Keyboard Maestro.

5 More Productivity Apps for Your Mac-Based Home Office

When your Mac is the hubbub of your home office, you want to outfit it with productivity tools that actually make you, well, productive, more efficient, and maybe a little faster at what you do. I introduced my first list of Mac productivity tools back in April, and in between that time, I’ve also written about powerful automation programs like Keyboard Maestro, Hazel, andBetterTouchTool.

Today I will be highlighting another set of tools I regularly access. They each have a single purpose that makes them practical and easy to use for most Mac-based home office activities. All of them, except QuickCursor, can be downloaded from the Mac App Store.