The best Mac widgets and widget apps in 2026

Quick picks

Start with the widgets already on your Mac

macOS lets widgets sit on the desktop itself, not only in Notification Center. On a Mac running macOS 27, Apple’s own apps supply widgets for Calendar, Clock, Weather, Reminders, Notes, Photos, Stocks, Batteries, Screen Time, Find My, Home, Podcasts, Shortcuts and Calculator, and many App Store apps add their own.

1. Control-click the wallpaper and choose Edit Widgets….
2. Search the widget gallery or click a category, then drag a widget onto the desktop, or click it to have macOS place it.
3. Click Done. To change a widget’s size or what it shows later, Control-click it.

Widgets from apps on your iPhone can join them. Turn on System Settings›, then Desktop & Dock›, then iPhone Widgets, with the iPhone on iOS 17 or later, signed in to the same Apple Account and nearby or on the same Wi-Fi. The same Widgets section lets you hide desktop widgets and choose Dim widgets on desktop: Automatically, Always (monochrome) or Never (full color).

How we ranked them

We make MacScapes, so here are the criteria, and every fact about the other apps comes from their own websites and App Store listings. We looked at apps that put widgets on the Mac desktop, were updated in the last year, and publish what they cost. Übersicht is the one exception: its last release is from 2023, but no other app lets you write widgets as freely. We weighed:

1. What you can put on the desktop: how many kinds of widget, and whether you can click and type in them.
2. What you get without paying, and whether the free version is watermarked.
3. How the widgets look next to your wallpaper: styles, themes, and whether their colors follow it.
4. Price, monthly, yearly and once.
5. Requirements and how recently the app was updated.

No single app wins on all five. MacScapes is first because it’s the only one whose widget colors follow the wallpaper, but WidgetWall and BetterMacWidgets are ahead of it on the number of widgets, on free widgets and on widgets you can use, not only read.

The ranking at a glance

The six apps, ranked

1. MacScapes: best for widgets that match your wallpaper

MacScapes is a live wallpaper app first: 42 scenes your Mac draws as they play, in any of 48 palettes. Its 14 widgets take their ink and accent from that palette, on each display, so the same clock looks different on a misty dawn and on a night sky. Light ink sits on dark scenes and dark ink on light ones. Each widget comes in three sizes and four shapes, and each vibe picks a material (glass, tinted, solid or bare), one of four typefaces and an opacity.

The 14 are Clock (digital or analog), Date, Day, Calendar, Weather, Focus Timer, Countdown, Year, Battery, World Clock, Moon, Season, Note and System (CPU and memory). Widgets are saved in a vibe with the scene and ambient sound, and a schedule can switch vibes at set times or at sunrise and sunset.

Price: Clock, Date and Day are free; the other 11 need Pro, at $19.99 once for up to 3 Macs. Needs: macOS 14 or later. Keep in mind: the widgets are for reading, not clicking. The calendar draws the month without reading your events, and there are no notes or reminders to tick off.

2. WidgetWall: most free widgets

WidgetWall lists 35 widgets: 12 free, like a clock, timer, stopwatch, calculator, photos and app shortcuts, and 23 premium ones, including Calendar, Reminders, Notes, Music, Weather, Pomodoro, Countdown, a browser and a Stats widget for CPU, RAM and disk. Many of them are small tools you use right on the desktop. It adds stickers with click actions, and since version 4.0 (May 2026) more than 1,000 still and animated wallpapers. Widget backgrounds can be colors, gradients or photos, with separate looks for light and dark mode.

Price: free, with premium at $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year; the listing also shows lifetime purchases at $39.99 and $49.99. It’s on the Mac App Store and in Setapp, and needs macOS 12. Its listing doesn’t mention widgets that follow the wallpaper’s colors.

3. BetterMacWidgets: most widgets

BetterMacWidgets keeps 9 widgets free for good: two clocks, weather, calendar, reminders, timer, world clock, stopwatch and countdown. Pro unlocks all 41, among them gauges for CPU, GPU, memory and disk, an app launcher and Shortcut buttons, plus 20 themes that recolor every widget at once and glass styles that let the wallpaper show through. Lock Screen widgets and widgets you define yourself in JSON files come with the Bundle.

Price: €12.99 once for Pro, €19.99 for the Bundle. Prices are listed in euros. It’s a direct download and needs macOS 15 on Apple silicon, so Intel Macs and older systems are out.

4. Widgetter: best for system stats

Widgetter leans toward keeping an eye on the Mac: CPU, fan speed, RAM, disk, battery and network speed, next to clocks, a calendar, weather, music, photos, tasks and currency and crypto prices. Widgets come in any size, with your own colors and fonts and themes you can apply to each display, and the important ones can stay above your windows.

Price: a free download with a watermark. The listing shows upgrades at $4.99 a month, $19.99 or $39.99 a year, and $29.99 or $59.99 once, plus watermark removal for $2.99, or $1.99 for one month, without saying which unlocks what. Needs macOS 13.

5. Übersicht: best for building your own

Übersicht runs a command and shows its output on the desktop. Each widget is a small web page written in JavaScript and JSX, so it can show anything a Terminal command can report, drawn however you like. You can download widgets from its community gallery, which warns that a widget can run any code, so read one before you install it. It’s free and open source, needs macOS 12, and its latest release, 1.6.82, dates from December 2023.

6. DeskWidgets: notes, to-dos and desktop files

DeskWidgets mixes interactive widgets, like sticky notes, to-do lists, reminders, a calculator and a file organizer for the desktop, with clocks, a calendar, Pomodoro, a countdown and CPU, RAM and network stats, in color themes. It’s a free download from the Mac App Store and needs macOS 12.4. Its listing shows nine in-app purchases, from $0.99 a month to $50.00 once, without saying what each one unlocks.

Features side by side

Other apps we looked at

These come up in the same searches but don’t put widgets on the desktop, so we haven’t ranked them.

• Kepo turns websites, RSS feeds, prices and dashboards into widgets, some built by its AI from a description, inside a panel you open with a keyboard shortcut. Free with one panel; Pro is $4.95 a month or $36.99 once. Apple silicon, macOS 12.
• iStat Menus is a system monitor for the menu bar, with CPU, GPU, memory, disks, network, sensors and battery, and alerts when something crosses a limit. It has a 14-day trial and needs macOS 13.5.

Which one should you get?

• You want a calendar, reminders or the weather at a glance: the built-in macOS widgets. They’re free and use your own data.
• You want lots of small tools on the desktop: WidgetWall.
• You want the most widgets for one payment: BetterMacWidgets, if your Mac has Apple silicon and macOS 15.
• You want to watch CPU, memory and fans: Widgetter on the desktop, or iStat Menus in the menu bar.
• You’d rather write your own: Übersicht.
• You want the widgets, wallpaper and sound to look like one thing: MacScapes. See how to build an aesthetic Mac desktop for the rest of the setup, or our ranking of live wallpaper apps.