Finding project management software for Mac that seamlessly integrates with their operating system can significantly enhance productivity and collaboration. From intuitive interfaces to robust features, the best project management solutions will elevate your Mac-powered project management experience. Here are our top picks:
Our Picks
Best Overall Pick
Asana is one of the most versatile project management solutions on the market today, with features and price plans to fit the needs of individual users and large enterprises alike. Yet, out of all the types of users that can benefit from Asana, Mac users stand out as a top match for the solution. Users of the Mac-optimized Asana desktop app can enjoy unique features and customization options unavailable to browser users. To give Apple fans even more options, Asana also offers a mobile application for quick updates and work on the go.
Read more: Our Asana review
Example of Asana’s app-exclusive task transcription feature. Source: Asana, accessed January 2024.
Key Features
Auto-create action items: Desktop users can transcribe their voice or transform pictures into automatic action items.
Focus time: App-exclusive ability to set focus time by pausing notifications and setting individual task timers/limits.
App-tailored organization options: The ability to single tap to organize, bookmark, and archive tasks, as well as view updates from a sole notification stream is helpful for mobile and desktop app users to stay in the loop and on top of work.
Pros
Cons
Why We Picked Asana
Overall, Asana shines as the top choice for Mac users because of the flexibility it provides users and the thoughtful design efforts that Mac users in particular can benefit from, such as app-exclusive features. With a sleek interface and a wide range of features to appeal to teams of all shapes and sizes, Asana is a great pick for Mac users who want a more personalized and customized feeling from their project management solution.
Best For Integration-Heavy Mac Users
ClickUp is a flexible and user-driven solution that allows users to visualize tasks creatively, brainstorm project ideas (such as through the Whiteboard feature), and more. While its Mac-optimized desktop app offers a streamlined and focused project and task management experience, ClickUp also offers a mobile app for iPhone and a unique mobile app designed for Apple Watch users. Yet, even more, impressive still is ClickUp’s 1000+ native integration options that are available to users at no additional cost – making ClickUp by far the most impressive option for integration-heavy Mac users.
Read More: Our ClickUp Review
Example of a multi-project view in the ClickUp for Mac app.
Key Features
Multi-task action tools: Easily select multiple tasks or groups of tasks and make multiple changes with a single click.
Variety of view options: Mac users can visualize tasks through unique, HD view options that are extremely diverse compared to other solutions, such as Embed view, for example.
Built-in emailing: Users can send and receive emails directly from ClickUp, limiting how often users need to jump around between apps.
Pros
Cons
Why We Picked ClickUp
ClickUp is a powerhouse for Mac users with a sizeable pre-existing tech stack. Whereas other options force users through a third-party connector, like Zapier, ClickUp is a rare solution that offers plentiful native integration options. The Mac-optimized desktop app is sleek and easy to navigate, and what’s more, Apple fans can extend their ClickUp experience to iPhones, iPads, and even Apple Watch for project updates on the go.
Best for Any Size Project Team
Wrike is another best-in-class project management tool for Mac designed to empower project managers and teams with efficient and collaborative project planning, tracking, and execution. With its user-friendly interface and robust features, Wrike streamlines project management processes and enhances productivity. From task management and resource allocation to real-time collaboration and reporting, Wrike provides a centralized platform for project managers to efficiently organize and execute their projects. Its intuitive and customizable interface allows project managers to tailor the tool to their specific needs, creating seamless coordination, communication, and successful project delivery.
Read More: Our Complete Wrike Review
For Mac users, Wrike delivers native integration and optimal performance on the macOS platform. Whether you’re using a MacBook, iMac, iPad, or other Apple device, Wrike’s web and desktop applications provide a consistent and intuitive experience for Mac users.
Wrike’s native macOS application is specifically designed to leverage the capabilities and features of the operating system, ensuring smooth functionality, responsiveness, and compatibility. With its clean and visually appealing interface, Mac users can easily navigate and interact with Wrike, taking advantage of its robust project management capabilities while enjoying a positive user experience that aligns with the macOS ecosystem. From creating and tracking tasks to collaborating with team members, Mac users will find Wrike to be a reliable and efficient tool for managing their projects from beginning to end.
Wrike’s dashboard view, with AI recommendations.
Key Features
Native macOS application – Wrike provides a dedicated native application for macOS, offering seamless integration and optimized performance on Mac devices. The native app leverages the capabilities of the operating system, ensuring a smooth and efficient user experience.
Intuitive user interface – Wrike’s user interface is designed to be user-friendly and intuitive, allowing Mac users to easily navigate the tool and access its various features. The interface is visually appealing, providing a clean and organized workspace for project management tasks.
Robust collaboration tools – Wrike offers powerful collaboration features, enabling Mac users the ability to collaborate with their larger project team. These tools include real-time updates, task assignments, file sharing, comments, and notifications, facilitating seamless communication and teamwork within projects.
Pros
Cons
Why We Picked Wrike
Based on professional real-world observations and the overall positive feedback from project managers using Wrike on a Mac, we recommend Wrike as a top project management solution for Mac users. Its user-friendly interface, collaboration features, task management capabilities, and integration options make it a powerful tool to enhance project efficiency, collaboration, and success. Wrike seamlessly integrates with Mac operating systems, providing an intuitive and user-friendly experience and an interface that is optimized for Mac users.
The system integrates with various Mac productivity tools, such as Apple Calendar, Mail, and Contacts, allowing project managers to streamline their workflow and centralize project-related information. Wrike excels in facilitating collaboration among any size team, enabling seamless communication, file sharing, and task management. Advanced features offered in the paid tiers will give you all you need to work smarter and customize the system to the way you want to get work done.
Best for Communication and Collaboration
monday work management (often shortened to monday) is a popular project management platform known for its user-friendly interface and extensive collaboration features. With monday.com, teams can effectively plan, track, and execute projects with ease – directly from the iOS-optimized desktop or mobile applications. The platform offers highly adaptable boards where users can create and manage tasks, set deadlines, assign responsibilities, and track progress. It also provides various project views, such as Kanban boards and Gantt charts, allowing teams to visualize and manage their projects in different formats that can be further customized and configured.
Read More: Our Complete monday Review
monday.com excels in its collaboration capabilities, supporting communication and file-sharing features for teams. This platform provides a solid project management solution that simplifies task management, enhances remote team collaboration, and helps teams stay organized and productive throughout the project or program lifecycle.
monday.com’s dashboard view, with customizable tags and fields.
Key Features
Customizable project data visualizations and dashboards – monday excels in project data visualization and dashboard features, providing users the ability to create visually stunning and informative representations of project data. With customizable dashboards, users can easily track key metrics, monitor project progress, and gain insights into overall performance, providing a clear and comprehensive overview of their projects at a glance.
Automation and workflow management – monday’s automation features give users the power to automate repetitive tasks and streamline workflows, saving time and increasing productivity. With a wide range of automation options, users can create custom automation recipes to automatically trigger actions, update statuses, send notifications, and synchronize data, ensuring that processes are executed consistently.
Collaboration and communication – monday has robust collaboration tools that facilitate tight communication and teamwork. Users can leave comments, tag team members, and have real-time discussions, fostering collaboration within projects. The platform includes easy file sharing so users can access and collaborate on important project documents with their team, further enhancing collaboration and information sharing.
Pros
Cons
Why We Picked monday
monday is a compelling choice for project management for Mac users due to its robust features and positive user feedback. With its user-friendly interface optimized for macOS, users can navigate and utilize the platform seamlessly. monday stands out with its extensive customization options, advanced collaboration tools, and automation capabilities. It provides a visually appealing and intuitive project management solution, allowing Mac users the ability to track tasks, communicate with ease, and streamline complex workflows. User reviews highlight its ability to enhance team collaboration, increase productivity, and provide a centralized platform for project management.
Best for Simple Task Management
Todoist is perhaps the most approachable task management tool available to Mac users today, with a logical interface and an overall design that was made with Apple users in mind. What Todoist lacks in complex project management tools it makes up for in clean design and a notable lack of a learning curve. The interface reminds me of a blend between the IOS Reminder application and Notion. While the focus is primarily in capturing user to do lists across devices, it does offer users the added ability of multiple project views and team member interaction to help set Todoist apart from traditional “reminder” style apps.
Read more: Our Todoist Review
Example of Todoist’s interface upon initial login.
Key Features
Team collaboration: Users can create and share projects and task lists, complete with user assignments and commenting features.
Personal and professional workspaces: Separate workspaces help you filter out team project assignments from individual task lists and even personal notes and to-dos.
Templates: Todoist offers a variety of templates for managing meetings, tracking projects, and more.
Pros
Cons
Why We Picked Todoist
While Todoist isn’t a top choice for large organizations, it’s a wonderful tool for Mac users who are looking to take a step away from more complex options and into a streamlined task management tool that gets right to the point. Todoist would also make a great addition to an existing tech stack for Mac-focused project management, as many more team-focused project management solutions don’t provide users a lot of ability to hone in on their to-do lists instead of team lists.
Best for Solopreneurs and Small Business Owners
Compared to our other top project management solutions for Mac users, Notion stands out as the most adaptable with more use cases than just about any product on the market today. Built with user customization in mind, Notion puts the power of flexibility in users’ hands, with the ability to use Notion as a wiki, project management suite, document hosting platform, and much, much more.
Read more: Our full review of Notion
A wide range of integration options, ready-to-use templates, file import and export options, and an extremely generous free forever plan make Notion a top choice for fast-moving solopreneurs and business owners who are looking for an affordable all-in-one project management solution that can adapt at scale.
Example of a Kanban-style task board, with customizable workflow statuses.
Key Features
Workflow personalization options: Notion places a strong emphasis on customization which shines through in its project management capabilities. Users can create their own priority labels, status tags, tracking metrics, and even rearrange project field layouts for unlimited project personalization options.
Wiki setup options: In addition to extensive project management capabilities, Notion is also designed to be used as a team Wiki, where brand guidelines, staff onboarding procedures, and other essential knowledge bases can live.
Automated sprints: Tech-focused small businesses and startups can benefit from Notion’s automated sprint boards that make grooming the backlog, organizing sprints, and tracking bugs easy – a rare feature not supported by most traditional project management solutions.
Pros
Cons
Why We Chose Notion
Notion is an amazingly flexible project management solution that can double as a team Wiki, brand board, file storage application, and more. From emoji label options to a powerful iOS-compatible mobile app that works even on IPad, Mac users can enjoy the powerful features of Notion from anywhere. For startups, small businesses, and solopreneurs, Notion’s ability to blend more complex features (such as workflow automations) with an easy-to-use interface and hundreds of use cases help it stand out as a top choice for Mac users.
Best Kanban Solution for Mac
Trello combines the perfect blend of ease of use with the essential functions teams rely on to make projects happen. Mac users can enjoy an optimized desktop experience as well as a complete mobile app that keeps you updated on the go. Each task is visually presented as a card within each Kanban column, giving teams a way to quickly track task progress without crunching numbers or digging through documents.
Read more: Our full Trello review
Example of template options from Trello within the Mac app.
Key Features
In-task attachments: Users can attach files directly within task cards to easily access essential data.
Automation options: Trello offers a variety of workflow automation options to speed up workflows and automate recurring tasks.
Template choices: Template options designed for specific use cases and industries make it easy to set boards up faster.
Pros
Cons
Why We Picked Trello
The drag-and-drop style interface is easy to learn and easy to navigate for Kanban-loving Agile teams and the detail contained within each task card helps provide a more in-depth level of insight compared to more basic Kanban board options. When it comes to Kanban-style layouts, Trello shines as a top pick for visual teams.
Pricing Comparison
Our Pick | Best For | Pricing Starts At |
---|---|---|
Visit Asana | Best Overall Pick | Free to try • $10.99/user/mo. Read details |
Visit ClickUp | Best Free Option for Mac Platform | Free to try • $7/user/mo. Read details |
Visit Wrike | Best for Any Size Project Team | Free to try • $9.80/user/mo. Read details |
Visit monday | Best for Communication and Collaboration | Free to try • $9/user/mo. Read details |
Visit Todoist | Best for Simple Task Management | Free to try • $4/user/mo. Read details |
Visit Notion | Best for Solopreneurs & Small Business Owners | Free to try • $8 per user/month Read details |
Visit Trello | Best Kanban Solution for Mac | Free to try • $5/user/mo. Read details |
Methodology
Key Features of Project Management Software & Tools for Mac
When shopping for project management software and tools for use on a Mac, project managers should prioritize identifying key features that align with their specific project management needs and enhance their workflow efficiency.
Benefits of Project Management Software & Tools for Mac
As project managers and users operating on a Mac, recognizing the indispensable benefits of utilizing project management software and tools tailored specifically for your platform is crucial for achieving enhanced productivity, seamless collaboration, and streamlined project execution.
FAQs: What Are the Most Important Questions to Ask When Evaluating PM Software for Mac?
How to Choose the Best Project Management Software Solution for a Mac
When choosing project management software for use on a Mac, project managers should consider several crucial factors. First and foremost, compatibility with macOS and optimization for Mac devices is essential to ensure a seamless user experience. In addition, evaluating the software’s key features and functionalities, such as task management, collaboration tools, and integration options, helps determine its suitability for specific project requirements.
Data security and privacy measures are critical considerations to safeguard sensitive project information. Understanding the pricing model, scalability, and potential additional costs of the software is crucial to make a cost-effective decision. Ultimately, conducting thorough research, reading reviews, and testing software through trial periods or demos can aid in selecting the best project management solution for a Mac.
Remember, compatibility with macOS and a user-friendly interface are crucial factors to consider when selecting project management software for use on a Mac. By taking these factors into account, you can maximize the benefits of your software, enhance collaboration, and drive successful project outcomes.