While there are some apps worth paying for, free apps are often capable enough that they should be your first stop. By skipping free apps, you could be wasting money on paid apps you don’t need. You could also be effectively wasting money by spending time on bad apps that don’t efficiently do what you need.
Across a range of categories, these are the free apps everyone should use to avoid unnecessary paid tools and make their workflows as flexible as possible.
Quickly take notes and browse them everywhere
Everyone needs a note-taking app for jotting down quick thoughts, storing information to reference later, and more. There’s no need to pay for a note-taking tool or deal with a default app like Apple Notes not being readily available on Windows. Instead, Simplenote goes with you everywhere and makes note-taking simple.
Simplenote has a clean interface with your notes on the left side and the content on the right. When you want to focus, the left panel is collapsible. Instant search, along with note tags, makes it easy to find anything in your library. You can add checkboxes to make lists, pin important notes to the top, enable Markdown support, and even publish your notes to the web.
You don’t need fancy visuals or dozens of extraneous features in your note-taking tool. Simplenote is a dependable note-taker that doesn’t cost anything and keeps your most-needed info at hand whenever you require it.
Zip up and unzip every file
You should refuse to pay for WinRAR or other file compression tools; they’re one of the biggest digital wastes of money possible when 7-Zip does everything you could ever need in this area. Windows has gotten better at natively archiving and unzipping files over time, but you should still have 7-Zip installed to avoid wasting time with less common archive formats.
7-Zip makes it easy to zip or unzip anything, right from File Explorer. It’s lightweight, and while it does more than is normally required for home use, it’s not overwhelming. It won’t win any awards for its visuals, but that doesn’t matter much when it does its job and gets out of your way.
Everything you need for screenshots
Here’s a great example of a tool that both shows you don’t need fancy paid apps while also doing more than the default solution and saving you time.
ShareX is an impressively feature-packed screenshot tool, offering tons of ways to capture your screen. It then includes plenty of editing tools for marking up your images and lets you send the result to tons of destinations. ShareX also packs in automations, which run a chain of actions like copying the image to your clipboard and uploading to cloud storage.
It’s an arguably bloated tool, but you can get a lot of use out of its core features. Unless you take and edit screenshots all day, you don’t need paid tools for the task.
Create and store strong passwords
Nobody should be without a password manager, and while 1Password is one of the apps I find worth the cost, you likely don’t need to spend on it. That’s because Bitwarden’s free tier is so great.
It includes all the features you need, with $10/year unlocking a few bonus features you might appreciate. Don’t waste time with your browser’s barebones password manager that doesn’t work smoothly when you’re using another browser (or platform).
Setting up a password manager properly is an investment, but once you’re done, having it will save you so much time. You won’t waste any more time trying to remember passwords, having to recover accounts, or thinking up another iteration of your old password.
Automate it all
AutoHotkey might not save you money directly, but it will certainly free up your time to do more valuable tasks—and that’s sometimes even better. While the tool has a learning curve, setting up AHK scripts is an excellent way to automate the tedious parts of using a computer and focus on what matters.
Once you get to grips with AHK, you can remap keys you don’t use, auto-correct typos, convert text cases, open many apps at once, and do so much more. You’re only limited by what you can think of and figuring out how to script it.
Unearth those large files
When you see the dreaded “low storage space” message on your computer, don’t waste your money on paid cleanup tools. You shouldn’t immediately shell out for a new storage drive, either. Instead, install TreeSize’s free version to see what’s taking up space on your PC.
This tool is great because it lets you check for both large files and huge apps you aren’t using at the same time. In many cases, you can free up space without removing anything important. TreeSize Free doesn’t check for duplicate files (that’s only in the paid version), but Microsoft’s PC Manager is a great free solution for cleaning up duplicates.
Free apps save money
While there are certain cases where free apps can’t compete with the paid offerings, none of these fall into that category. These are all tools everyone can get use from, that provide as much if not more value than paid apps, and will save you time along with cash.
Try them out before you look for anything more, and remember to keep free software in mind next time you need a different category of app. Don’t assume you have to pay for the apps you’ve heard the most about!
