The Apple subreddit recently threw a thread together to find everyones favorite applications. These could be paid, free, OS X or iOS. Considering nothing is more appealing than free, we took the time to sieve through the hundreds of submitted apps to bring you the top 5 free Mac OS X apps according to Reddit.

*Please note that these votes may have increased from the time this data was collected.

1. Alfred (79 votes)

This app is a must! All StackSocial employees are encouraged to download Alfred upon joining the team. It’s one of the only apps we use on a daily basis and we would be lost without it. OK, maybe not lost, but terribly annoyed. Out of the best free Mac apps, Alfred is undoubtably king. Jump on this right away if you haven’t already.

2. The Unarchiver (46 votes)

If you need a file opened on OS X, this is the app to do it. Unarchiver strives to be the only app one would ever need top open any file format, and they do a pretty damn good job of accomplishing just that. This also falls under the umbrella of must-have apps.

3. f.lux (42 votes)

This app is created with the purpose of improving your sleep. (Right!?) It’s pretty simple. Screen brightness can negatively affect your sleep quality if you are beating your retinas to death with bright light prior to sleep. If you commonly find yourself using your computer in the dark, this app will adapt to the proper brightness so you aren’t over stimulated before slumber. Just download it, install, and you will forget you even have it.

4. Airmail (22 votes)

OK, you got us. This app actually costs $2 but I tossed it in because the uber cheap price point and it’s head and shoulders above the remaining free apps in regards to votes. This is a crazy simple, yet crazy powerful mail client that supports most major email services. I understand why one would think your gmail, yahoo, and other email services are simple enough, but your email in fact could be simpler and this is the ticket.

5. Cloud (8 votes)

The unobtrusive solution to sharing files. This is actually my favorite utility behind Alfred. If this isn’t part of your everyday computing life, your life isn’t as easy as it could/should be. Download it and don’t look back.

There you have it, the best free Mac apps according to reddit. If you have any questions regarding these apps, feel free to drop a comment or contact me directly on Twitter @allanblocker