Best Free Windows Alternatives to Mac Productivity Apps

(Published: 2019/07/08)

As much as I dislike Windows, sometimes I just have to put up with it. However, I don’t think I should have to put up with living without the wonderful apps on my Mac that only seem to be found on the Apple App Store. In particular, I love productivity apps. Unfortunately, most of the productivity apps I use aren’t compatible with Windows. So here are some of my favourite Mac apps and alternatives!

Safari – I love Safari. It’s just so minimalistic. In the event flash is necessary, I switch to Chrome. However, I would never use Chrome on a daily basis. It’s pretty clunky and quite frankly, it just irritates me. After a bit of light research, I found Vivaldi (yes, the four seasons), an extremely customisable browser that uses the Chromium engine. There are many themes you can choose from or you can design your own. You have full control of an extensive list of shortcuts specifically for the browser and can sync your tabs, bookmarks, and notes (it has a built-in notes capability) to other devices with a Vivaldi account (accounts are 16+). There is also Vivaldi email. I haven’t been able to test the syncing or the emails as I am not 16 but if you go by the standard of the rest of Vivaldi’s features, I’d say it’d be pretty good. You can also choose where you wish your tabs to be (top, bottom, left, right) which is an option I haven’t seen before. In fact, my customised theme is so minimalistic and functional I’m considering switching to Vivaldi permanently.

My Vivaldi homepage

You can get floating previews of your tabs, use speed dial search, and choose your accent and background colour. There are also multiple custom trackpad gestures. All in all, it’s a must get, especially for the minimalist.

(Update: Vivaldi can load very slowly depending on your laptop. The fix for this is to disable some of Vivaldi’s great features. I suggest that if you’re interested in Vivaldi, download it and see how it goes without disabling any of the features and then make a decision from there.)

iCloud Notes – I honestly don’t know how I’d survive without iCloud Notes. Everything is so simple when you can carry around things you need to remember on every device! As an alternative, I use Evernote, an internet based notes service. You can use both the app and web version on Android, Windows, Mac, and iOS devices. I use Evernote all the time, regardless of the device I’m using. (People who use Apple devices consistently might think to use a similar note taking app, Bear, over Evernote, but while it looks heavenly, there is no web version and it doesn’t sync between devices. Bear developers say they are working on a web version but there is no set arrival date, and heads up, it costs)

Spark Mail – I love Spark so much. It is beautiful and convenient. While on the search for something good enough to rival it, I found Spike, a new sort of email app that sorts your mail more like messages. Threads are conversational and newsletters are sorted separately from your personal emails. It has quite a nice user interface and can be used as a web app. If you’re looking for a more traditional mail service, until a couple of days ago, I would have recommended the minimalistic email service, Superhuman. However, in the past couple of days, reports have emerged of some seriously bad privacy issues with Superhuman that you can (and should) read more about here. So instead, I’d recommend to either change the Spike settings to sort by inbox or subject (rather than the default, people) or to download MailSpring. MailSpring isn’t anything special. It is the most similar thing I could find to Spark, in terms of its UI, although it doesn’t have any amazing features that sort your emails which is part of the reason Spark is so good.

(verdict: use Apple devices…ha ha ha sorry, Windows)

iMessage – This is a difficult one. I used to use Skype, but after coming across the major privacy issues with it recently, I went on the hunt for something else to use. If you’re a computer nerd, I suggest you try Tox, a mainly decentralized instant messaging service designed for privacy. It looks a little ugly, and is still being developed, but if you’re willing to try something new, it’s a pretty interesting experience. I will warn you, it isn’t completely decentralized and the website is a tad misleading, but it is more secure than Skype and WhatsApp. If you want something a little more user-friendly, check out Signal, a secure messaging service. Although it can only be used as a desktop app through your phone number, it seems quite functional otherwise.

Magnet – So much of my productivity revolves around Magnet. The split screen capabilities Mac provides on its own just don’t quite cut it. With Magnet you can use keyboard shortcuts to move your windows to practically any part of your screen in an instant and it’s so much more convenient than dragging your windows and resizing them manually. I know it sounds lazy, but it really does save time! For Windows, you can download AquaSnaps. The website looks ancient and slightly shifty but after googling for a while I came to the conclusion that AquaSnaps won’t bug my laptop. AquaSnaps also has the keyboard shortcuts and unlike Magnet, it’s free! Although you can get a Pro version, the basic version has everything I would ever need..

Pages – This is the same story as Safari. When I first got my Mac, I was sent straight to the Office Suite. I used Microsoft Word for a few years until, after a few times my documents deleted and did this weird autosave-multiple-times-and-make-my life-confusing-thing, I began to realise that Word is just not for me. So, I went to the deadly and very much condemned app, Pages. Which I happened to like very much and still use today. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a substitute for Windows and would honestly just use Evernote or another similar web platform. If anyone has any suggestions, please leave a comment below!

That’s about it for my favourite productivity apps. I hope if you’re switching platforms and dying inside at the default Windows apps, this has helped you out a little!

• Charlie B.

Featured image is a courtesy of Digital Synopsis