Christmas Apps for Mac: 10 Festive Picks for 2026 (Most Are Free)

By Divv Saxena · November 13, 2026 · 6 min read

Quick answer: The best Christmas apps for Mac are mostly ones you already have. Use Apple Music or Spotify for carols, Shortcuts for a days-until-Christmas countdown, Notes or Reminders for a shared gift list, Freeform for planning, Photos and iMovie for a holiday slideshow, and NORAD or Google's Santa Tracker on Christmas Eve. For something that makes the Mac itself feel festive every day, Elfie is an advent calendar that hides an elf on your screen from December 1 to 24.

If you spend most of your day at a Mac, it is where a lot of December happens: gift lists, card designs, playlists, video calls with family. This guide sticks to real apps and websites that run on a Mac today, and most of them cost nothing. We built one of them, so we have flagged it clearly.

1. Elfie: a daily advent calendar on your Mac (our app)

Full disclosure first: Elfie is ours. It is a small menu bar app that turns your Mac into an advent calendar. Every day from December 1 to 24, a cartoon elf called Pipkin hides somewhere new on your screen: peeking from behind a real app window, sitting on a title bar, poking up from behind the Dock or hanging under the menu bar. Click him and you get a joke or a fun fact, and a painted wallpaper unlocks.

It also adds gentle snowfall and twinkling string lights under the menu bar, and there is a hotkey (Control-Option-E) that hides everything instantly before a screen share. Before December 1, Pipkin naps in a corner with a countdown.

Elfie runs on macOS 13 Ventura or later, on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. It costs $7 for one Mac or $12 for up to five, paid once. Until November 30, 2026, the code EARLYBIRD makes the one-Mac price $5.

2. Apple Music or Spotify for Christmas music

Both apps run natively on the Mac and both have plenty of holiday playlists, from classic carols to lo-fi Christmas mixes to focus music for the last work week of the year. Search for "Christmas" and save a couple of playlists in November so they are ready the day you want them.

A small tip: if you share your screen a lot, turn the volume down before a call. Carols in the background are more festive for you than for your colleagues.

3. Shortcuts for a days-until-Christmas countdown

Shortcuts comes with every recent Mac, and a countdown takes about a minute to build:

1. Open Shortcuts and create a new shortcut.
2. Add the Date action and type "December 25".
3. Add Get Time Between Dates, measuring from the current date to that date, in days.
4. Add Show Result (or Speak Text for a spoken countdown).

Pin it to the menu bar from the shortcut's details, and you can check the countdown in one click. It is also a gentle first project for anyone who has never tried Shortcuts.

4. Notes or Reminders for a shared gift list

Gift lists get messy when they live in several chats. Both Notes and Reminders let you share a list with family through iCloud, so everyone can tick things off. Reminders is better for "who buys what" because you can assign items and add dates; Notes is better for links, photos of items and longer ideas.

Keep a private list for the people who share your shared list. Surprises still matter.

If you are stuck for ideas, our guide to gifts for Mac users has ten digital options that arrive by email.

5. Freeform for planning the holidays

Freeform is Apple's free whiteboard app, available on macOS Ventura 13.1 and later. It suits the bigger planning jobs: a menu for Christmas dinner, a travel plan, a seating chart or a mood board for decorations. You can drop in photos, links, sticky notes and PDFs, and invite family to the same board so the plan is in one place instead of across group chats.

6. Pages or Keynote for cards and invitations

You do not need a design app to make a good-looking Christmas card. Pages and Keynote are free on the Mac, and both handle text, photos and simple shapes well. Start from a blank layout or one of the built-in templates, add a photo and a short message, then export a PDF to print or an image to send.

For card art, any of our free Christmas wallpapers for Mac works well as a background.

7. Photos and iMovie for a holiday slideshow

The Photos app can search your library by what is in the pictures, so typing "Christmas tree" or "snow" usually turns up last year's photos quickly. Select your favourites and create a slideshow, or bring them into iMovie, which is free from Apple, to add titles and music for a short family video. It makes a good gift for grandparents, and it costs nothing but an evening.

8. GarageBand for recording carols

GarageBand is free on the Mac and much easier than it looks. Record the family singing a carol, add a backing track, or make a short festive voice message to send instead of a text. Children especially enjoy hearing their own song played back with a bit of reverb on it.

9. NORAD Tracks Santa and Google Santa Tracker

These two are websites rather than apps, but they are a Christmas Eve tradition in many homes and they run well in Safari or any other Mac browser.

• NORAD Tracks Santa (noradsanta.org) follows Santa's route around the world on December 24, a tradition the North American Aerospace Defense Command has kept going for decades.
• Google Santa Tracker (santatracker.google.com) has, in past years, offered small games and activities through December before the tracking starts on Christmas Eve.

Put one on a big screen after dinner on the 24th and let the children watch where he is.

10. A festive wallpaper you change yourself

The simplest seasonal change is the desktop. Open System Settings, choose Wallpaper, then Add Photo or Add Folder and pick a Christmas image. If you add a folder of several images, you can set macOS to rotate between them on a schedule.

Our Christmas wallpapers for Mac include eight free 3840×2160 downloads painted for Elfie. The rest unlock day by day inside the app.

Which Christmas apps should you start with?

If you want the quickest win, do three things this weekend: save a Christmas playlist, build the Shortcuts countdown, and start a shared gift list. They take about fifteen minutes together and cost nothing. Add a Santa tracker to your Christmas Eve plans, and if you want the Mac itself to feel like December every morning, add an advent calendar that lives on your screen.

FAQ

Are there free Christmas apps for Mac?

Yes. Shortcuts, Notes, Reminders, Freeform, Pages, Keynote, Photos, iMovie and GarageBand are all free from Apple, and Spotify has a free tier for Christmas music (Apple Music needs a subscription). NORAD Tracks Santa and Google Santa Tracker are free websites.

Is there an advent calendar app for Mac?

Yes. Elfie is a menu bar advent calendar for macOS 13 and later: an elf hides somewhere new on your screen each day from December 1 to 24, and finding him unlocks a joke and a wallpaper.

Can I put a Christmas countdown on my Mac?

Yes. Build a short shortcut in the Shortcuts app with the Date and Get Time Between Dates actions, then pin it to the menu bar. Elfie also shows a countdown before December 1.

Does Elfie work on Intel Macs?

Yes. Elfie is a universal app that runs on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs with macOS 13 Ventura or later.

Make your Mac feel like December

Most of the list above is about doing Christmas things on a Mac. Elfie is about the Mac itself joining in: a little elf to find every morning, a joke to share with whoever is sitting next to you, and a new wallpaper each day until Christmas Eve.

Get Elfie for your Mac: $7 for one Mac or $12 for five, paid once. Use code EARLYBIRD for $5 until November 30, 2026.

Tags: Christmas Apps · Mac Apps · Advent Calendar · Santa Tracker · Shortcuts