The Best Productivity Apps for 2025: Work Smarter, Not Harder

If you're interested in using an AI chatbot, ChatGPT is the best one around. Thanks to mature, robust models with best-in-class sourcing, ChatGPT is great for everything from searching the web to writing a new resume. It still gets things wrong sometimes, of course, but ChatGPT can still be a much more effective digital assistant than Alexa or Siri, depending on what you need to do. However, you'll miss out on integrations with office productivity apps like Docs and Word provided by Google Gemini and Microsoft Copilot, respectively.

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag's parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.

If you've had to sign anything in the last decade, chances are you know about DocuSign, an online system for managing contracts and other documents that require electronic signatures. DocuSign's mobile app makes it easy to review a file and sign it using a touch screen. Even if you don't need DocuSign in your work life, the app could come in handy for anything from signing a lease to a permission slip. If you just need to sign forms, the app is free; for sending documents and collecting signatures, you need to pay for a subscription plan.

Otter.ai, also called simply Otter, is one of the best transcription apps on the market. We highly recommend it if you need a free option for automated meeting transcriptions. You get a good amount for free, including 300 live transcription minutes per month and three prerecorded audio or video files for transcription per lifetime (each transcription session can be up to 30 minutes). If you like Otter and want more bandwidth, you can subscribe to a paid Pro plan ($16.99 per month). Pro includes 1,200 minutes per month for live transcriptions, and you get to upload 10 prerecorded files per month for transcription.

Your iPhone or iPad becomes a productivity helper with Apple's Shortcuts (free for Apple mobile devices). This app lets you create automations, or a series of events that happen automatically upon a trigger. For example, you can make one that says, "When I stop my phone's Wake-Up alarm, automatically play a morning news podcast." Even if you know nothing about programming, it's simple to create some time-saving shortcuts.

Asana is a collaborative list app for tracking ideas, tasks, and everything else. You can use it as a to-do list for you or your family or as a tool for managing complex projects. Asana has multiple ways of showing you your tasks or ideas, such as Kanban boards, lists, and timelines. You can use it solo or share the lists you create with other people to assign them tasks, have them add new tasks, and receive comments. We use it here at PCMag!

Basecamp was an early player in the collaborative software space. It's a virtual hub where you and your colleagues pore over a project together. You can assign tasks to the right people, collect meeting notes in a central location that everyone can access, discuss changes, and upload files, among other things. Basecamp tries to be a more approachable, easier-to-use project management solution, so you may well end up preferring its interface over more traditional apps.

Miro is a collaborative whiteboard, in addition to being a presentation and diagramming app. You can throw mind mapping and video conferencing in there, too. Everything about it is collaborative. Create a slideshow or draw an idea, either by yourself or with others editing simultaneously. Miro has built-in audio and video calling (as well as screen-sharing tools), so you can discuss and show off your work as you do it. In addition, you can pull in media from other apps to display, whether it's Asana cards or Vimeo videos. Though it sounds like a hodgepodge of ideas, Miro is extraordinarily easy to use.

Teamwork is a top-notch productivity app for small to midsize organizations that need to get up and running with project management quickly. It's easy to use—ideal for a project management service. Everyone working on the project gets a login, while the project manager or team leads organize high-level aspects, such as the start date, end date, and intermediate milestones. Team members then use the app to see what tasks they are responsible for and provide updates on their progress, making the collaboration process transparent.

In case you're unfamiliar with Trello or other Kanban apps, picture a board divided into columns. For instance, To-Do, Doing, and Done. With Trello, you get a stack of sticky notes, and you write a to-do on each note. You can also add a description of that task, an assignee, and a due date. Place the sticky notes onto the board in the To-Do column, moving them along as your work progresses. It's a simple system that opens itself up to inventive uses. And Trello is, dare we say, fun.

This online collaboration app helps organizations keep track of work: who's doing what, when, and what kind of progress they're making. At an even higher level, team leaders and managers can see how all those tasks contribute to the bottom line. Wrike also has special account types for helping certain kinds of teams deal with work specific to their industries, including marketing and business services. You can integrate Wrike with many other apps and services, too.

If you find most project management apps cost-prohibitive for your business, check out Zoho Projects. This online app keeps pace with the world of project management extremely well, maintaining a fresh look and adding features that all teams need to work collaboratively—all for a very low price. It even offers a truly free level of service, so you can try it out without any restrictions. Zoho Projects also supports ample add-on tools and services for growing your team.

Hey launched with the goal of revolutionizing the inbox. It's now a full-fledged email service, meaning you get a brand-new email address when you sign up. You also get an "Imbox" rather than an inbox: the "Im" stands for important and immediate, and you get to decide what belongs there and what doesn't. You can organize your emails with labels, merge messages, change subject lines, and more. If you're in the market for a more productive email account, Hey is worth exploring.

Slack is one of the most popular group messaging apps for organizations. You can make a Slack account for free, but paid accounts come with more features and support. You can message individuals, channels, or private groups on Slack, plus conduct audio and video calls. This app has a reputation for fostering community among professionals, too. Slack lets you connect with colleagues in whatever way works best for you—asynchronously, in real-time, in public, in private—which is something email could never do.

Spark from Readdle is one of our favorite email client apps. Unlike many competitors, Spark is built entirely around email—not notes or to-do lists. Spark gives you excellent features for organizing messages, great keyboard shortcuts, and a lovely interface. If you are looking for a more focused email client, this may be the one for you.

RescueTime does for your productivity what calorie-counting does for weight loss. It brings attention and insight to your habits, hopefully empowering you to change them. This app runs quietly on your computer, recording how much time you spend on different apps and websites. It then generates reports to show your productive times. You can customize its settings to make sure it understands what counts as productive to you.

SaneBox is a lifesaver if you struggle with email. For a couple of bucks per month, SaneBox goes into your email on the back end and starts sorting messages for you. Anything that's probably not important, based on your email history and other factors, goes into a folder that isn't your inbox. SaneBox won't throw away any emails without your permission, but it will sweep aside anything that would normally bog you down. You can teach the app by giving it feedback over time, making it better at its job.

If you run a company that does client-driven work, you need time-tracking software. Harvest is one of the best examples you can find, whether you work solo or with others. You can use it for tracking billable hours; the app helps you catalog them under the right project or client when you record time as you work. Plus, Harvest is easy to use and not too expensive.

If you like the idea of Evernote but are looking for a simple and free alternative, Joplin is it. This open-source note-taking app is cross-platform and gives you the core tools you need for capturing, finding, organizing, and saving notes. It doesn't have every feature under the sun, however. With Joplin, you can either use your own storage or pay for Joplin to manage it with Joplin Cloud.

If you're a professional or run a business, you probably rely on forms of some kind. Jotform is an all-in-one platform that helps you do everything from creating sophisticated forms to building AI-powered customer service agents. Jotform's capabilities are robust: It features countless templates, the ability to construct forms from scratch, and a helpful AI tool you can use to create forms for you. Best of all, you can use it at no cost.

Do you need to make diagrams that don't look like a fourth grader designed them? Hands down, one of the best tools is Lucidchart, a moderately priced app that allows you to create diagrams for business, education, or even personal use. One of its main strengths is letting multiple people edit a diagram at the same time. Lucidchart has an impressive template gallery full of ideas for charts and diagrams you didn't even know you needed. How about an emergency exit plan, for example?

A Microsoft 365 subscription unlocks a ton of exceptional apps and features. First and foremost are Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, all of which are by far the best at what they do. Then there's Microsoft OneNote, the only note-taking app that rivals Evernote in features. Finally, you get 1TB of OneDrive space for your online storage needs. You also get a suite of Copilot features across Microsoft 365 apps, though if AI is not your thing, you can opt out.

Obsidian is a flexible note-taking app for power users. If you need a note-taking system to work exactly the way you want and don't mind taking the time to get it there, Obsidian is the application you should check out first. It's free for personal use.

Not everyone takes to slide decks. If your ideas never seem to come across in a standard slideshow, try Prezi, a presentation app that gives you a huge digital whiteboard to lay out your ideas. Once you have your thoughts down, you move a virtual camera around the board to show different parts in the order you want, recording it as you go. And voilà, you have a presentation. Prezi works for both in-person and virtual presentations. The app also comes with plenty of templates and supports collaboration.