Best Black Friday software deals for Mac and iOS users

It's not just hardware you can get a good deal on during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, there are significant savings to be had on the best software around. Check out our continually updated guide to the best app deals available.

Here are the most significant deals on the best software for Mac, iPhone and iPad, that are available during this year's prime shopping season. While Black Friday itself is officially November 29, the majority of these deals start early and continue late. But all of them will vanish at some point soon, so if you see software you need, be certain that the price is going to go back up shortly so you should buy right away.

Frankly, we're happy paying full price for the software that we rely on, but that doesn't mean we'll ignore a bargain. Nor does it stop us scouring for deals, so keep checking back here as we find new ones.

Default Folder X

Default Folder X is one of those apps that by itself is a reason to buy a Mac. And for the Black Friday weekend, it's 25% off when you use the coupon code BLACKFRIDAY2019 at checkout.

The developer also has 25% off its App Tamer, History Hound and Jettison apps.

Setapp and MacPaw

MacPaw is running two Black Friday sales on software. Until December 2, you can buy an annual subscription to the Setapp collection of apps for 20% off. That makes it $95.99 instead of the regular $119.88 and gets you more than 160 major Mac apps to use.

Separately, the company is also offering discounts on its one-time purchase apps, CleanMyMac X, Gemini 2 and Wallpaper Wizard. These all have a discount of 30%, but this offer ends on November 30.

Full details on the MacPaw site.

Pixelmator

Pixelmator Pro for Mac is on sale until December 3. Instead of the regular $39.99, you can buy this extremely full-featured Mac image editor for just $29.99.

40% off Adobe Creative Cloud

By the size of the discount, this one is very good. But by the size of what it applies to, it's incredible. Adobe is discounting Creative Cloud plans and that means the price of every single app is cut — until November 29.

You can currently get a 40% discount off Adobe's entire collection of apps for both Mac and iOS. That includes industry-standard Mac apps like Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere Pro — and the new iPad version of Photoshop.

Creative Cloud is sold in different versions, but the discount offer applies to what's called the All Apps plan. It's now $29.99 per month when you sign up for an annual plan, or $359.88 when you buy the whole year in advance.

20% off Parallels Desktop

Parallels Desktop 15 is 20% off for Black Friday

Parallels has also issued its Black Friday deals early, with a 20% off instant discount on Parallels Desktop. New licenses are $63.99 after the markdown, while upgrades are $39.99 (reg. $49.99). These discounts, which only happen once a year, are valid through Cyber Monday.

Fantastical, Cardhop and Chatology

Flexibits is running a 20% discount sale from 22:00 ET on November 24 to the same time on December 9. That means, amongst other bargains, that one of the calendar apps AppleInsider most recommends is now forty bucks on the Mac instead of fifty.

Fantastical 2 for Mac is $39.99, but you'll also want the separate versions for iPhone and iPad. Fantastical 2 for iPhone is now just $3.99, and for iPad it's $7.99.

Flexibits is also the developer of Cardhop, a kind of bionic contacts app that we've enthused about on the Mac and on iOS too.

Fantastical 2, in all its many forms, is 20% off, as is Cardhop and Chatology

Cardhop and Fantastical are both built to make it fast to find the contact or the appointment you need, and Flexibits's Chatology does the same for searching Messages. It's now just $15.99 for the Mac.

Check out the details of all these apps on the Flexibits site.

Telestream Screenflow

This is more of a combined hardware and software deal as it starts with $500 off Wirecast Gear, a video streaming production system. Buy one of these — starting at $5,995 — and you can get 50% off ScreenFlow for Mac.

ScreenFlow for Mac was originally a screen-capture app, and it still does that, but it's become more of an entire video editing system.

Inoreader

RSS newsreading app Inoreader is offering a Black Friday special deal until November 29. If you upgrade from the Free version to one of its annual subscription plans, you'll get 18 months for the cost of 12.

Affinity

The maker of Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer and the new Affinity Publisher has a sale of 30% off each of those apps — plus the company's workbooks, content packs.

Detail from the Affinity Black Friday sale

This means that Affinity Publisher is now $33.99 instead of $49.99, and so too are both Photo and Designer. Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo are also available on iPad, and there the 30% discount makes them just $13.99 each.

DEVONtechnologies

You could regard DEVONthink as an ">Evernote- or Apple Notes-style app, but that would be missing the real point of this extremely powerful research tool which uses AI to find connections between your notes.

DEVONthink 3 Pro plus all its sister apps and upgrades are 25% off

For the Black Friday to Cyber Monday weekend, all versions of DEVONthink — and all upgrades — are 25% off. That means the standard edition of DEVONthink 3 is $75 instead of $99. DEVONthink Pro 3 is $149 instead of $199. And the upgrade from standard to pro is also 25% off.

So are the company's companion apps, including DEVONagent, which is a web search app whose pro version will now cost $38. And also DEVONsphere Express, a desktop search app that organizes and indexes the documents on your Mac, which will be $7.50.

The 25% sale runs from Friday to Monday on the DEVONtechnologies site, and the discounts are applied during checkout.

Roxio

Roxio is offering discounts of up to $40 on its Roxio Creator and Toast apps — plus a bonus gift. The sale is only on from November 25 to November 29, so you have to buy before this weekend.

Roxio Toast is the long-standing app for creating and burning DVDs on your Mac, while Roxio Creator adds video and photo editing.

Check out both on the discounts of up to $40.

Corel

You can save up to 60% off the cost of Corel software, including such major apps as Corel Painter, PaintShop Pro and WordPerfect Office. But note that the sale ends on Friday November 29

A selection of the Black Friday discounts at Corel

Visit the Corel site and enter discount codes at checkout.

The code 10CORELSAVE gets you 10% off the majority of apps, although not CorelDRAW. PSP2020SAVE10 is also a 10% discount off the likes of PaintShop Pro, and CD2019SAVE5 takes 5% off the cost of CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 2019.

Other items on the store have had their price lowered directly, such as Painter 2020 which is 30% off.

iMazing

An app for backing up iOS devices to your Mac and also transfer files between them, iMazing is offering a 50% discount from now until Tuesday December 3.

This makes a single user licence $22.50 instead of $44.99 and the discount applies to all its editions.

ChronoSync

The extremely powerful Mac backup app ChronoSync is on sale until December 2 for $39.99, a $10 saving on the regular price.

Alternatively, you can buy the ChronoSync and ChronoAgent Combo for $49.99, which is like getting a $15 saving off the two together.

Unclutter

Unclutter is a Mac app that lets you keep documents, images, and even just clipboard copied text, in a convenient place on your desktop. Rather than scattering files everywhere and filling up your screen, you can simply drag any item to Unclutter and know it'll be there for when you want it next.

Until December 6, Unclutter for Mac is 50% off at $9.99.

BeLight Software

BeLight Software, makers of apps including Live Home 3D and Get Backup Pro, is having a 50% discount sale.

Running until Monday, December 2, the half price offer applies to all of its Mac and iOS/iPadOS software for art, graphics and desktop publishing.

Universe website building app

An iOS app for creating websites, Universe is a subscription service that ordinarily would be $120 per year, but is now on sale for 25% off.

The deal only lasts until December 2, and you'll need to type in the discount code internetfriends19 at checkout.

Mail Designer 365

Mail Designer 365 is a Mac app for creating compelling email templates for marketing campaigns.

It's on sale and until December 2, you can subscribe for a 50% discount. Plans start at $7.50/month.

Kiwi for Gmail

Normally this Gmail Mac client costs $5, but until December 2, it's now available for free.

Don't forget hardware

Of course you're going to need some hardware to run this software on. So it's a good thing that Black Friday is seeing bargain deals across iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

Check out our continually updated guide to the best Black Friday hardware deals too.

Even more Apple deals

AppleInsider and Apple authorized resellers are also running additional exclusive savings this month on Apple hardware that will not only deliver the lowest prices on many of the items, but also throw in bonus discounts on AppleCare, software and more. These deals are as follows:

1. Best early Black Friday deals on everything Apple
2. Save with coupon on every 16-inch MacBook Pro
3. Apple AirPods Pro are on sale
4. Save $400 to $500 on 13-inch MacBook Pros
5. Apple 2019 iPad on sale for $299

Interested in additional Apple hardware? See if there is a Mac, iPad or Apple Watch deal that will save you $100s by checking out prices.appleinsider.com.