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Which Mac apps actually go on sale for Black Friday, and which “deals” are just the everyday price with a bigger badge? Those are the two questions worth asking before you spend anything on Black Friday Mac app deals this year.
Only a handful of Mac app sales are live so far, and they aren’t all equal. ScreenSage Pro advertises 53% off, but its regular pricing page already sells the same license well below the struck-out price.
TablePlus has shown its “only chance of the year” code since at least May. The bigger names, like Raycast and Things 3, usually wait for the last week of November.
My suggestion is to judge every Mac deal against the price the developer charges on a normal day. If the saving still looks good, I’d buy it now. For the apps that haven’t started yet, I’ve put last year’s Black Friday terms below so you know what to wait for.
Most of the apps in the expected list are on my own Macs, including Raycast Pro, Things 3, CleanShot X and Eagle. The 2 biggest live sales come from one team. ScreenSage Pro records and edits tutorials and product demos, and CleanClip is a clipboard manager for Mac, iPhone and iPad.
Mac App Deals Live Now
These 5 offers are live on the developers’ own sites. Two of them run all year, and I’ve marked those so you don’t rush into them.
| App | Best for | Black Friday offer | Ends |
|---|---|---|---|
| ScreenSage Pro | Recording tutorials and demos | Lifetime license for $209.90, 3 Macs | December 15 |
| CleanClip | Clipboard history on Mac, iPhone and iPad | 30% off with code BF2026 | December 15 |
| Parallels Desktop | Running Windows on a Mac | Up to 50% off the first year | No end date yet |
| TablePlus | Database work | 25% off with code BLACK_FRIDAY_2026 | Runs all year |
| TG Pro and Folder Tidy | Mac temperatures and tidy folders | 50% off: $10 and $5 | Runs all year |
ScreenSage Pro
ScreenSage Pro is a native Mac app that records your screen and turns it into a polished tutorial or product demo. It zooms in on your cursor automatically, so a raw recording looks edited without hours on a timeline.
Its Black Friday page has 3 plans, and the codes apply on their own at checkout:
- Lifetime, 3 Macs: $209.90 with code BFS2026L, with lifetime updates
- Pro, 3 Macs: $79.90 with code BFS2026P, with 1 year of updates
- Single, 1 Mac: $53.40
- Ends: December 15, and it can’t be combined with other offers
The badge says up to 53% off, but that’s measured against a $449 list price. ScreenSage’s regular pricing page sells Lifetime at $299, Pro at $99 and Single at $59 on any day of the year. So the real Black Friday saving is $89.10 on Lifetime, $19.10 on Pro and $5.60 on Single.
Lifetime is the plan worth buying now. Pro renews its updates at $69 a year, so 3 years of Pro costs $79.90 + $69 + $69 = $217.90, which is already more than the $209.90 Lifetime price. If you stop renewing, the app keeps working and you just stop getting updates.
These are the features that make it worth a look:
- auto zoom that follows your cursor and zooms in where you type
- 3D camera moves and webcam layouts that can change partway through a recording
- iPhone and iPad screen recording over USB
- separate audio tracks when you record with more than 1 microphone
- camera background removal, GIF export and share links
I’d pick ScreenSage if you record tutorials or demos every week and want them to look edited without the editing. For a quick clip now and then, CleanShot X records the screen too, and it’s the capture app on all 3 of my Macs. ScreenSage is macOS only for now, and my guide to the best screen capture software covers the other options.
CleanClip
CleanClip is a clipboard manager that keeps everything you copy and lets you paste any of it with a shortcut. One license now covers the Mac, iPhone and iPad apps, with lifetime updates.
Code BF2026 takes 30% off every plan until December 15:
- Standard: $13.99 instead of $19.99, for 3 devices
- Pro: $20.99 instead of $29.99, for 5 devices, with email support
- Family: $41.99 instead of $59.99, for 12 devices, with priority support
- Extra devices: $4.99 each on any plan
The website license costs less than the App Store version, and its Quick Menu can pop up right at your text cursor, which the App Store build can’t do. The App Store version is the better pick only if you want Family Sharing or unlimited devices on one Apple ID.
Three features set it apart from a plain clipboard list:
- Quick paste: ⌘ plus the semicolon key opens your history, and the number keys 0 to 9 paste an item
- Paste Stack: you queue several copied items, and ⌘V pastes them in order
- Split Copy: ⌘⇧C turns a block of lines into separate items in the stack
I get my clipboard history from Raycast, and if a searchable list is all you need, Raycast or the free, open source Maccy will do. CleanClip earns its $13.99 when you paste the same snippets and replies all day and want them on your iPhone too.
Parallels Desktop
Parallels Desktop runs Windows and Linux on a Mac, side by side with your Mac apps, without a restart. I keep it for the times I need to test something on real Windows, such as how a site renders in Edge.
Its Black Friday sale is already on:
- Standard and Pro: 50% off the first year
- Business: 35% off the first year
- Renews at: the regular yearly price
- Last year: the sale ran from November 4 to November 30
Prices vary by region, so your checkout shows the amount in your currency. If you need Windows on your Mac in the next year, I’d take this now. The discount covers the first year only, so a reminder before the renewal date is wise if you only needed it for one project.
TablePlus
TablePlus is a native database client for MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite and other databases. Code BLACK_FRIDAY_2026 takes 25% off its one-time licenses:
- Basic: $74.25 instead of $99
- Standard: $96.75 instead of $129
The banner calls it “the only chance of the year”, but the same code has been on the TablePlus site since at least May. So there’s no reason to rush and no reason to wait either. If you query a database most days, 25% off a one-time license is still a fair price.
TG Pro and Folder Tidy
TG Pro shows your Mac’s temperatures and fan speeds and lets you control the fans. Folder Tidy sorts a messy folder, such as Downloads, into subfolders by file type. Both come from Tunabelly Software.
Right now TG Pro is $10 and Folder Tidy is $5, which is half price. That’s Tunabelly’s standing discount, though. Last Black Friday it went further, to 75% off TG Pro and 70% off Folder Tidy, which put them at about $5 and $3.
I’d pay $10 for TG Pro again, because it’s the quickest way to see why my Mac is warm or loud. If you can wait until Black Friday week, last year’s prices suggest you’ll save a few more dollars.
Expected Black Friday Mac App Deals
These apps ran a Black Friday sale last year and haven’t posted this year’s offer yet. Mac developers tend to repeat their numbers, so last year’s terms are the best guide to what’s coming.
| App | What it’s for | Last Black Friday | Last year’s dates |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raycast | Launcher, snippets and shortcuts | 30% off Pro with code BF30, for new subscribers | November 28 to December 1 |
| Things 3 | Personal task manager | 30% off all its apps on the App Store, no code | Through December 1 |
| ForkLift | File manager and FTP/SFTP | 50% off on its own store, no code | From November 19 |
| Tower | Git client | 30% off the first year of every plan | From about November 25 |
| Whisk | HTML and PHP editor with live preview | 30% off with code CYBERHYPERMONDAY | November 24 to December 2 |
| SEO Utils | Desktop SEO toolkit | 20% off with code BF25 | Until December 2 |
| Linearity Curve | Vector design | Pro at $39 a year instead of $79 | November 21 to December 1 |
| Eagle | Image and design library | 30% off new licenses | November 28 to December 4 |
| Supercharge | Small macOS tweaks | 40% off Sindre Sorhus apps on Gumroad | November 28 to December 1 |
| Scrivener | Long-form writing | 25% off | Black Friday to Cyber Monday |
| Camtasia | Tutorial video editing | 50% off with code CYBER50 | Around Cyber Monday |
| CleanShot X | Screenshots and screen recording | Discounted inside the Unclutter Black Friday bundle | Late November |
A few of these have changed their pricing since last November, so the same discount may land on a different price:
- Raycast has new plan tiers, and last year’s code worked for new subscribers only.
- SEO Utils now sells one $69 desktop license, so 20% off would bring it to about $55.
- Linearity Curve has moved to about $96 a year on a credits plan, so last year’s $39 offer may not come back in the same form.
Of these, Things 3 is the one I’d plan around. I own it and still open it every day, and Black Friday is the one time a year it usually gets cheaper. Eagle is the other, because its 30% has come back every year since 2022 and it’s where every image I collect ends up.
These had smaller or less regular sales, so I’d treat them as a bonus if they return:
- Craft: 50% off Plus for life with code CRAFTV3 in 2024
- Enpass: up to 25% off yearly plans last year, and it no longer sells a lifetime plan
- PDF Expert: its Black Friday discount has shrunk each year, from 50% to 30% to about 10%
- BetterDisplay: 33% off with code BFCM2025 last year
- BetterTouchTool: 25% off Standard and 33% off Lifetime in 2024
Mac Apps That Won’t Go on Sale
Some of the best Mac apps skip Black Friday entirely. If one of these is on your list, waiting gets you nothing:
| App | What to know |
|---|---|
| iA Writer | Its own FAQ says it won’t be on sale for Black Friday |
| Pixelmator Pro | Apple owns it now, and it has stayed at $49.99 one-time |
| Clop | Its developer skips seasonal sales on purpose |
| Alfred Powerpack | No Black Friday sale, and buying now includes a free upgrade to Alfred 6 |
| Setapp | No official sale; the Mac plan is $14.99 a month, and only resellers discount it |
| Typora, Bear, Transmit and Sublime Text | No Black Friday sales in past years |
Setapp is worth pricing out before you buy several small apps one by one. CleanShot X is part of it, for one, so I’d add up the one-time prices on this page and compare them with a year of Setapp first.
How to Judge a Mac App Deal
Most Mac app sales fall into a few patterns. These are the checks I make before paying for one:
- The everyday price: I measure a sale against the developer’s normal pricing page. Measured that way, ScreenSage’s 53% off becomes about 30%.
- The update window: a one-time license often includes only 1 year of updates. The app keeps working after that, but new features need a renewal.
- First year or every year: subscription discounts, such as the ones from Parallels, Raycast and Tower, usually cover the first year only.
- Website or App Store: a direct license often costs less, while the App Store adds Family Sharing.
- Apps you already have: Raycast and Setapp already cover clipboard history and screenshots, so a deal on a duplicate app saves you nothing.
More Black Friday Deals
These pages cover the rest of my Apple and software deals, plus the Mac apps I’d buy at full price:
- Apple Black Friday deals on the Mac, iPhone and iPad themselves
- Software and SaaS Black Friday deals for business tools that run in the browser
- All Black Friday deals by category, from hosting to WordPress
- The Mac apps and utilities I use, sorted by the job each one does
- One-time purchase Mac apps, with what I bought and what I’d skip
FAQs on Black Friday Mac App Deals
Does Raycast have a Black Friday deal?
Raycast took 30% off Pro with code BF30 last year, from November 28 to December 1, for new subscribers only. It hasn’t posted this year’s offer yet.
Is the ScreenSage Pro Black Friday deal worth it?
The Lifetime plan is. It costs $209.90 for 3 Macs with lifetime updates, which is $89.10 less than its everyday $299 price. The Pro and Single discounts are small next to their everyday prices.
Do Mac App Store apps go on sale for Black Friday?
Some do. Things 3 took 30% off all its apps on the App Store last year. Many Mac developers discount only on their own websites, where licenses often cost less anyway.
Does Setapp have a Black Friday sale?
Setapp doesn’t run an official Black Friday sale. Its Mac plan is $14.99 a month, and the only discounts come from resellers.
When do Black Friday Mac app deals end?
Last year, most Mac app sales ended between December 1 and December 4, a few days after Cyber Monday. ScreenSage Pro and CleanClip run until December 15 this year.
Final Remarks
Still deciding whether to buy now or wait? If ScreenSage Lifetime or CleanClip was already on your list, I’d buy it now, because both sales run past Black Friday at the same price.
For the expected Black Friday Mac app deals, I’d check back on Black Friday itself, November 27. That’s when most of last year’s Mac app sales were running at the same time.