5 Essential Apps You Need to Install on Your Mac Mini in 2026

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The Mac mini is one of the most interesting options for Mac users looking for a desktop option. Although the current memory crisis no longer makes this computer the cheapest Mac available, it’s still more affordable than most MacBook options and significantly better than the Mac Studio. And if you already have the essential Mac mini accessories, the price is much easier to justify, whether you opt for the new M6 Mac mini or the M5 Pro option. Either way, there are a few essential apps that can improve your experience, like Opera One, Portal, and Ulysses.

We have selected these apps based on our personal experience and reviews from real customers. After all, selecting essential apps always depends on the type of activity you do with your Mac. A developer will therefore say that Xcode is an essential application for him. On the other hand, a student might say that Pages or a Microsoft Office subscription is the best they can get. That’s why we focused on more universal options that can help you through different phases of life and with the tasks of the day.

Safari is great, until it’s not. Apple continues to promote this browser as the fastest and most reliable option on Mac, but this claim has not been true for a few years. Not only do I try to go back to Safari after every macOS update, but I always end up switching back to Opera One, a much more reliable browser that gets the best out of Chromium without being power or RAM hungry. More importantly, I’m not alone in making this claim, as several editors also consider the current Safari experience to be a mess.

With Opera One, now in R3, the company is improving Tab Islands, which now intuitively and automatically groups tabs and users can name and color-code these groups. It also adds AI with 20% faster responses and on-screen recognition based on what you see in the browser, as well as sidebar improvements with more integrated apps. In everyday use, Opera One feels reliable and fast, and has one of my favorite features: splitting the screen between tabs with only one window open.

Opera One is free to download for Mac, and users who don’t want to use all the features of Opera’s main browser can also use Opera Air, a minimalist browser focused on removing distractions and maximizing focus. Another option is Microsoft Edge, which with a few tweaks can become your new go-to browser on Mac mini.

Whether you’re working on your Mac mini, putting in long study sessions, or simply getting hooked while browsing the web to discover your next trip, there’s one app that should be on every Mac computer: Portal – Escape Into Nature. Created by independent developers at Portal Labs, it helps people manage their well-being while working, browsing, or simply relaxing after a long day. Portal is a key productivity tool that brings you closer to nature with vibrant landscapes, spatial audio support, and even pairing with your smart lights, if you want.

With a recently added Circadian Flow feature, each landscape can match your current time zone, meaning you can start your day with a morning landscape and go into the night with another option that continues to match the mood. According to the developers, spending time in nature can boost concentration, boost creativity, ease anxiety, and improve sleep.

Portal currently offers over 100 landscapes and has been completely remade for the Liquid Glass interface. It offers timers and alarms, deeper integration with Siri AI, and most importantly, a lower price so more people can enjoy the feeling of being close to nature. Its premium subscription costs $2.99/month, $29.99/year, or $99.99 for lifetime premium access. The company also offers a seven-day premium access trial without requiring any payment details.

Say you write a lot – whether it’s because you dream of becoming the next Carrie Bradshaw or you’re a student, writer or journalist – there’s an app for you: Ulysses. While you could say that everything works for taking notes, from Apple’s Notes app to Pages or Microsoft Word, you might know that something specific can be a lot of fun. This is why Ulysses exists: it helps you focus on the creativity within you.

Available for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, the app shines best on Mac, where you get a larger screen to enjoy that whiteboard without interruption. Most importantly, you have access to different folders, allowing you to organize different projects, from the books you write and novels to recipes, your personal journal or even your office stuff. The app also offers built-in grammar and style checks for over 20 languages. Ulysse can analyze text and offer informed suggestions for capitalization, punctuation, semantics, redundancy, style, and more. The writing app also integrates with third-party software like WordPress, Ghost, Medium, and Micro.blog, so you can publish your thoughts from one app to another platform in the blink of an eye.

Ulysses offers a trial, but requires a premium subscription to work. If you use it for a while and decide not to renew, your data remains in the application, but you will not be able to modify it. Regular tiers cost $39.99/year, although students can get a discounted rate of $10.99 for six months.

It’s true, you might find a lot of paid ads online for ExpressVPN, as the company typically promotes its product through tech YouTube channels and the like, but there’s a reason why you should get ExpressVPN (or, really, any VPN service) on your Mac mini. A VPN not only gives you a more secure browsing experience by hiding your IP address and avoiding trackers, but it also allows you to access different pages and services without leaving your home.

For example, I watched all three seasons of “Father Ted” on Channel 4 in England without using a sketchy method, and I can also easily check the American prices of my stories, even without being based in America. With a single tap, my browser understands that I’m in another part of the world and gives me access to information I wouldn’t have before. This is useful if I’m trying to access a government website when I’m not in my home country, if I’m accessing a website that’s blocked due to geolocation, etc.

If using your Mac mini requires you to be everywhere or, let’s face it, if you just want to watch a different catalog from your streaming service, software like ExpressVPN can be very handy. What’s great about ExpressVPN is that it often offers deep subscription discounts, so you can pay once and enjoy it for a few years without remembering that you paid for it, while still sharing it across a few devices.

Last but not least, there is one app that every Mac user should have, and that is Pixelmator Pro. Even though Apple purchased all Pixelmator software a few years ago and even bundled this app into its Creator Studio subscription, I highly recommend enjoying the original Pixelmator Pro experience. After all, it’s one of the simplest photo editing tools. You can easily improve the quality of an image using Machine Learning (the term before AI took over), clean up part of the image, double-copy and replicate part of the image, etc.

If you don’t do additional photo editing work that requires anything more complex than Adobe Photoshop, you’ll find Pixelmator Pro simple. The original experience is available on the Mac App Store for $49.99 as a one-time purchase, and it’s the software I still use.

Still, it’s important to note that Pixelmator Pro is also part of Apple’s Creator Studio, which is a $12.99/month or $129/year plan with several apps that bring productivity tools like Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, and even the iWork suite with some added benefits. For example, this edition of Pixelmator Pro also works on iPad and offers AI features, like Generate Fill. That said, if you just want an easy-to-use photo editor, the original Pixelmator Pro is still a must-have; If you want to access more apps or AI features, check out the subscription model.

BGR chose these essential Mac mini apps based on staff experience, as well as reviews from real customers and other media. These apps also cover everyday use and are therefore great options for a wide range of customers, not just people working in a very specific field. After all, everyone has to browse the web, focus on a task, write, watch content, and sometimes edit a photo.

Several apps might be worth it for Mac mini users, like WhatsApp if you don’t use iMessage; Slack, Trello and Microsoft Teams depending on your work; Xcode and other development tools; and so on. Nevertheless, BGR tried not to be too obvious in the selection, because even though there are many software programs available for Mac, finding the right one for everyday use can be difficult.

Most of the apps on this list require a one-time payment or subscription, which may not be suitable for all customers. Still, we recommend users to look for free solutions in these categories as well. That said, whether this is your first Mac mini or you’re just trying to diversify your current apps, this list offers a comprehensive selection of what we consider to be some of the best Mac apps available today.