My Mac has loads of built-in features that can make you more productive and organized such as Expose, Spaces, Spotlight, Dashboard, iSync with .Mac and the other included apps like Address Book, Mail, iPhoto, iChat, etc. But this is a list of add-ons I have found to be super useful. These apps would probably find a nice home on any Mac for most any user. Many of these are free or have free trials so give them a try as you may find them as useful as I have. See my list after the jump.

1Password, $29.95 – keeps track of all web passwords, automates sign-in, guards from identity theft. OS X has a wonderful system of remembering and securing your passwords and can even store notes and information securely. 1Password takes this to a new level by allowing you to fill in web forms from any browser and securely keeping your credit card information so online shopping does not require you to dig into your pockets for credit cards and reading little numbers. Multiple identities, multiple credit cards, no problem. 1Password also give iPhone and iPod touch users a way to fill in forms and remember passwords in mobile Safari. See my full review.

Anxiety, free – super-lightweight To-do list application for Mac OS X Leopard that synchronizes with iCal and Mail. A very simple icon that sits in your menu-bar (or Dock) that gets you to your tasks (to do list) that resides in iCal or Mail. A real time saver. See my full review.

CleanApp, $10 – rid your system of a program and all the files that came with it in a snap! An alternative AppZapper at $12.95. I try out a lot of software. I certainly do not keep everything I try out and removing these can be a pain. Both of these apps will make removing applications from your Mac a snap.

CuteClips, $10 – Improves copy & paste by retaining what you copied allowing to use those items again, or save them to disk. An great alternative is Savvy Clipboard at $12. I like both of these apps have alternated between them. There are several other choices as but I keep coming back to these two. Having a way to copy-copy-copy and then paste whatever you copied is an amazing time saver. These apps will save your multiple items in your clipboard and with a quick keystroke you can paste which ever one you have stored. By the way it does not have to be only text.

Google Notifier for Mac, free – application that shows you alerts in your menu bar, so you can see when you have new Gmail messages or upcoming Google Calendar events without having to open a web browser.

InstantShot!, free- Screenshots controlled from your menu bar. I take a lot of screenshots having this app accessible from the menu-bar is convenient and a time saver.

KeyCue, EUR $19.99 – gives you an instant overview of the overall functionality of any application, plus you automatically start working more efficiently by making use of menu shortcuts. How many times have you been working on your Mac and wished you could remember a keyboard shortcut? With KeyCue you just hold down the ? (Command key) for a few moments and up pops a transparent screen with all of the keyboard shortcuts listed that is relative to the app you are working in. You can move your mouse to choice it or type it. Great for new users or even experienced Mac users.

NetNewsWire, free – an easy-to-use RSS and Atom newsreader for Mac OS X. Two great alternatives are Vienna and NewsFire. Nothing like a RSS feed reader to keep up with all of your favorite websites. I could not work with out one. With some of the best newsreader apps going free, there is no excuse to use only your browser.

SuperDuper, $27.95 (to unlock advanced features) – Clone your drive with built-in scheduler for back-ups automatically. A nice alternative is Carbon Copy Cloner. Backing up your data is essential to your productivity. Sure Leopard has Time Machine and I use this on my desktop machine. But I still schedule regular clones on my hard drive. I highly recommend it.

Skype, free – VoIP and IM. Make telephone calls to from your computer. I do not use Skype only because it offers Skype to Skype call free. I use it primarily because having VoIP, video conferencing, IM and file transfers all in one place is productive. Sure wish Apple would have added some of the VoIP functionality into iChat, that would have made it a killer app, especially if it was cross-platform.

TextExpander, $29.95 – saves you countless keystrokes with customized abbreviations for your frequently-used text strings and images. Two great alternatives are TypeIt4Me at 27 euros and Typinator at 19.99 euros. I am totally hooked on TextExpander and have been a long time user. I am a terrible typist, slow and I make plenty of mistakes. I also find I am using a lot of “boiler-plate” text in my emails, contracts, letters, etc. TextExpander is a lifesaver for me. Why type all these long sentences and paragraphs over and over again? TextExpander can reduce these into a free keystrokes and it even syncs using .Mac so the snippets can be put on all your Macs. TextExpander is probably the app that makes me most productive. See my full review.

Yojimbo, $39 – Organize with this digital drawer. There are many alternatives like SOHO Notes and DEVONthink. Having a digital drawer on my Mac to organize stuff is fantastic. I was a long time user of Sticky Brain, then SOHO Notes which for me got a bit bloated, so I switched to Bare Bones Software’s Yojimbo that allows for .Mac syncing my stuff across all my Macs.

    | Tags: .mac, Macintosh, productivity, Software