Say 'hello' to a different messaging experience. An unexpected focus on privacy, combined with all of the features you expect.
In this world of social media, we've got a lot of chat channels to keep track of. Whether you're checking your Twitter DMs, GChats (Google Talk), Facebook Messenger messages, or iMessages, you can have most of them in one place with a dedicated chat client. These are the best chat apps for Mac.
Messages
Apple's built-in chat client, Messages, makes it seamless for you to chat with anyone that has an iPhone, iPad, or Mac without any effort. You can add SMS and texts messaging from Android or Windows phones to Messages if you have Text Message Forwarding enabled. It gets better, though. Thanks to a little help from Jabber, you can use Messages for dozens of chat channels that use XMPP instant messaging. It's lost some of its universal appeal over the last few macOS updates, however. Messages no longer works with Facebook, AOL Instant Messenger, or Yahoo. It's also very difficult to get Messages to work with GChat (though not impossible).
- Free - It's already on your Mac!
Adium
Adium is probably the most popular third-party chat client. You can connect it to AOL Instant Messenger, Google Talk, Twitter, MobileMe, IRC, Bonjour, Jabber, plus a few more. It's a great way to keep most (if not all) of your various chat clients in order. I personally don't like the interface of Adium, but sometimes function is more important than looks. Adium has a lot of little features that are really awesome, like initiating encrypted ORT chats, and file transfers. You can't get it in the Mac App Store, but it's free and open source and it's highly rated among Mac users.
Trillian
Trillian is another popular chat client that brings together many of your messaging apps into one place, including AOL Instant Messenger, Facebook, Google Talk, ICQ, Olark, and Twitter. I much prefer Trillian's interface because it reminds me so much of the built-in Messages app. It is, however, slightly less feature-rich unless you go pro. You can get quite a few more business-facing features for about $2 per month. It's a seamless experience for Mac users and my personal favorite third-party client, but I don't use a lot of different chat channels in my daily life. I stick with Google Talk, Facebook, and Twitter. It's perfect for me.
YakYak
I haven't personally used YakYak, but it's a big hit with Mac users that only want a Google Talk client. You may have noticed that GTalk compatibility with Messages in macOS High Sierra is difficult, to say the least. If you just want to be able to chat with your Google peeps with a dedicated window on your Mac, YakYak looks like the perfect option. You can upload images, group chat, and more. You have to install it from GitHub, but there are some fairly clear instructions on how to do so if you're saavy with your Mac. It's not a Chrome extension and doesn't rely on Chrome to work. So, if you're anti-Chrome, this apps is for you.
Download Free Application For Mac
How do you chat on Mac?
Free Instant Messaging Application For Mac Os X 10 12
What is your preferred chat client for bringing together all of your various chat channels? Put your recommendations in the comments and I'll check them out.
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Your tea–your wayFree Instant Messaging Application For Mac Os X 10 11
Review: Free Your Tea Subscription Box is personalized just for your tastes
The Free Your Tea Subscription Box uses a number of methods to get you your perfect blend of teas each month.
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To run Your Freedom on Mac OS X version 10.7 and above you need to install Oracle Java first. It is available for free from the Oracle Java SE download page. Choose the top-most version if more than one is offered. It does not matter whether you install the JDK (the Java Development Kit) or just the JRE (the Java Runtime Environment); if you are never going to mess with Java yourself the JRE will do and it is a lot smaller. Now download the appropriate Your Freedom installation package from our Download page (the one for OS X 10.7 and newer). Put the ZIP file on your desktop and unzip it by double-clicking it. If you want, move the unzipped application to an appropriate location (the Applications folder would be suitable I guess). Your Freedom runs on Mac OS X 10.5.7 - 10.6.x, but not on earlier 10.5 versions because it requires Java 6 and earlier Mac OS X versions do not provide Java 6. This description only applies to Intel based Macs. If you are using a 32bit based Mac, please check out the forums, there is a post in the feedback section explaining how you can do it; just search for 'non-Intel Mac' and you'll find it. At first you need to ensure that Java 6 is installed on your Mac. In Finder, open Applications, Utilities, Java. There is a tool called 'Java Preferences', open it. It will look like this: If you don't see 'Java SE 6' in there you need to install an update package. Visit http://developer.apple.com/java/download/ and get the 'Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update' package (whatever version is current). Once you've installed it, drag and drop 'Java SE 6' in the Applications area to the top. Now download the ZIP file for Mac OS X from our download section. Put it on your desktop, then double-click it, this will create the application on your desktop. Drag the Your Freedom application into your Applications folder if you like (you can also leave it on the desktop). The actual configuration process is the same for all operating systems. Please refer to the User Guide. The easiest way to do this is to configure a new 'Location'. Open System preferences: In the 'Internet & Network' section (weird, saying it this way round :-), click on 'Network' and open the 'Location' rollbar; select 'Edit Locations...': Now click on the '+' sign and add a new location; I have called it 'Your Freedom' but you might want to use another name: Click on 'Done' when you are. Now choose your new location, it will look like this: Click on the Advanced button, then choose Proxies. It will look like this: Configure a proxy for web and https as shown below. You need to tick both and configure 'localhost' port 8080 for both separately. Then tick 'socks proxy' and configure 'localhost' port '1080': When done, click 'OK', then click 'Apply'. Your new settings will become active and your browser and many other applications will now use Your Freedom. To switch back to your normal network settings, just open the System Preferences panel again and choose another location, then click on 'Apply' -- easy as that! Not all applications will honor the proxy settings configured in the System Preferences (for example, Your Freedom doesn't or it wouldn't be able to get connected). With these applications you can use OpenVPN mode -- in which you don't have to change your 'Location' to 'Your Freedom' unless your current 'Location' has proxy settings. So far there is no convenient way to run YF in 'dump mode' on the Mac. But you can do this:
Open a terminal window (Applications/Utilities). In there, 'cd' to the application installation path. Let's assume you've unzipped the original archive to your desktop, you'd have to type 'cd Desktop'. Then traverse into the application directory by typing 'cd Your Freedom.app', descend down to the place where the Jar file is kept by typing 'cd Contents/Resources/Java'. In there, type 'java -jar freedom.jar --dump' or 'java -jar freedom.jar --shortdump', depending on whether you would like a full or a short dump (in most cases a short dump is enough). This will bring up the YF client in 'dump mode'. Reproduce the problem, then exit the YF client. There will be a 'dump.log' file on your desktop now. It should contain enough information for us to check what's wrong if you send us this file. |
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