How can I get started designing apps for Mac from scratch?

Mac
1

I’m trying to design my first native Mac app and I’m feeling a bit lost. I’m not sure which tools, frameworks, or design guidelines I should follow for macOS specifically, since most tutorials I find focus on iOS. Can someone explain the best starting point, what software to use, and any must-read resources for Mac app UI and UX design?

2

I bounced around so many design tools on my Mac that at some point it stopped being “trying new apps” and turned into “personality flaw.” I still don’t have a single forever-favorite, but if I opened my laptop right now and had to actually ship something, here’s what I’d realistically reach for, based on what’s survived on my dock over the years.

The Stuff I Keep Coming Back To (Even After Trying To Quit)

Figma

This is the one I open “just to check something” and then realize it ate my whole morning.

What hooks me:

  • The endless canvas feels like a whiteboard that never judges you.
  • Brain-dump flows, design systems, throwaway explorations, all in one file.
  • Real-time collaboration that actually works, instead of “someone overwrote my file again.”

What breaks my brain:

  • It’s way too easy to end up with 47 frames, 19 pages, and no idea which one is the “real” version.
  • The tab explosion is real. If your browser looks like a game of Tetris, Figma will happily make it worse.

If I’m working with a team, a dev, or anyone who needs to comment directly on designs, Figma usually wins by default. If I’m solo and just sketching ideas, I sometimes regret how much overhead it brings.

Sketch

This tool used to be my main tool back when “designing for Mac” felt like a small, cozy club.

Why it still hasn’t left my Applications folder:

  • Native macOS feel. It’s fast, snappy, and doesn’t fight me.
  • Perfect for roughing out UI without getting sucked into a feature rabbit hole.
  • Artboards, symbols, and basic components are quick to set up and easy to reason about.

Reality check:

  • The ecosystem shifted toward Figma, so sharing work with teams is clunkier now unless everyone is on board.
  • Sometimes it feels like the “older sibling” that’s still good, just not the one everyone talks about.

When I want to think with my hands and block out layouts without the drama, I still hit Sketch first. Habit plus muscle memory is a powerful combo.

Affinity Designer

Every time I open Affinity Designer, I get a brief flash of “what if I actually learned this properly and never paid a subscription again?”

What it nails:

  • Vector + pixel modes in one app, and it actually works.
  • Handles gradients, complex shapes, and layered artwork without dragging my Mac to its knees.
  • Fantastic for illustration, icons, posters, or anything where Figma feels clumsy.

Things to keep in mind:

  • Not the default in most studio workflows, so collaboration might involve exporting everything.
  • There is a learning curve if you’re used to Adobe or pure UI tools.

If you like buying tools once and using them forever, this feels like a power tool with no monthly guilt. When I need to do more “art” and less “screens,” it’s genuinely fun.

Adobe Illustrator

Illustrator is the heavyweight champ that everyone loves to complain about but still quietly respects.

Why I still keep it around:

  • The pen tool, pathfinder, and type tools are still insanely capable.
  • Some print, branding, and production workflows are just built around Illustrator files.
  • Tons of tutorials, templates, and random legacy files still expect Illustrator.

What drives me nuts:

  • The interface can feel like a plane cockpit if you only need a simple graphic.
  • Performance can be hit or miss, especially on older hardware.
  • Subscription fatigue is very real.

I don’t live in Illustrator day to day anymore, but whenever I need to do very specific vector surgery or prep things for print, this is the app that usually pulls it off.

Other Tools That Sneak Into The Workflow

Canva

I used to side-eye this so hard. Then I had a tight deadline, opened Canva “just this once,” and… yeah.

Where it’s surprisingly useful:

  • Cranking out social graphics, quick decks, moodboards, or simple marketing pieces.
  • Letting non-designers edit content without you becoming the bottleneck.
  • Spinning up something “good enough” in 10 minutes instead of obsessing for 2 hours.

Where it falls short:

  • Not great for detailed UI, product design, or heavy custom work.
  • Design control is there, but you definitely feel the template bias.

I wouldn’t build a design career around it, but for low-stakes client collateral or internal stuff, it has absolutely saved me time.

Principle

Principle is the app I reinstall whenever I decide “Ok, this time I’m going to actually learn motion properly.”

What it’s good for:

  • Turning static UI into smooth, clickable prototypes you can show to stakeholders or devs.
  • Exploring transitions, microinteractions, and flows beyond simple Figma smart-animate.
  • Great when you need to visually sell the interaction, not just the layout.

The catch:

  • It’s not something I live in daily. I dip in when I need to impress.
  • Every time I come back after a long break, I have to re-remember how I set things up.

When a static mockup just doesn’t explain the experience, Principle is the “special weapon” app I open.

Cloud & Photo Workflow: The Unsexy But Necessary Part

CloudMounter

CloudMounter showed up in my life during a week where I was buried in giant client photo folders spread across three different cloud services.

What made it click:

  • It mounts services like Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. as if they were actual drives on your Mac.
  • You can drag files in and out like they’re local, which feels way less painful than constantly switching browser tabs and download folders.
  • It made digging through old assets and huge folders feel way more direct.

Caveats:

  • I wouldn’t say it’s a perfect, universal cloud solution for every scenario.
  • But if your design workflow involves constantly shuffling reference images, exports, and assets from cloud services into your projects, it smooths out a lot of daily friction.

It basically turned “some folder on a server somewhere” into “another disk in Finder,” which was all I actually wanted.

If I Had To Narrow It Down To What I’d Use Today

If my Mac got wiped tomorrow and I had to reinstall only a handful of tools to get real work done, this is the lineup I’d start with:

  1. Figma
    For team-based UI/UX work, shared components, and anything collaborative.

  2. Sketch
    For fast, focused interface sketching when I don’t want the overhead of a big web app.

  3. Affinity Designer
    For illustration, icons, brand assets, and when I want deep control without ongoing subscriptions.

  4. CloudMounter
    To make all the random cloud stuff behave like local folders and stop killing my flow.

  5. Illustrator
    For those edge cases where matching a client’s existing Adobe workflow or doing intricate vector/print work is non-negotiable.

If you say what you’re working on next (logo design, UI/UX for an app, illustration, social content, etc.), I can break down a more specific stack and how I’d chain these tools together on a Mac for that exact workflow.

1 Like
3

Start by ignoring half the iOS tutorials you’re finding. macOS has its own vibe, and if you just scale up iOS patterns to a bigger screen, you’ll end up with a weird “iPad on a Mac” app that feels off.

Since @mikeappsreviewer already covered the pure design tools stack really well, I’ll focus more on the Mac-specific side and how to actually shape a native-feeling app from scratch.

1. Learn the macOS “language” first

Before worrying about Figma vs Sketch vs Affinity, spend a day just studying how good Mac apps behave:

Open these and take notes:

  • Finder
  • Safari
  • Mail
  • Notes
  • Calendar
  • Xcode (even if you never code, just look at layout)
  • A third‑party “pro-ish” app like Things, Fantastical, or Pixelmator

Pay attention to:

  • Toolbar behavior: centered vs leading title, flexible space, icon-only vs text+icon
  • Sidebar patterns: when to use a source list vs a plain list
  • Split views: how panes resize, collapse, and remember state
  • Selection & focus: how keyboard navigation works, selection colors, context menus
  • Menus & commands: every action is usually in the menu bar, not just a button

This is the stuff that makes a Mac app feel “native” more than pixel-perfect icons.

2. Read the actual macOS design docs (yes, really)

Most people skim Human Interface Guidelines and go back to Dribbble. Don’t.

Two must-hits:

  1. Apple Human Interface Guidelines → macOS section

    • Layout, controls, sidebars, tables, menus
    • When to use sheets vs alerts vs popovers
    • App structure: document-based vs single-window utilities

  2. “Platform differences” between iOS and macOS

    • Pointer vs touch targets
    • Hover states, focus rings
    • Using menus, contextual menus, tooltips

This is where I disagree a bit with the purely tool-focused approach. Tools like Figma are great, but if you don’t internalize these platform rules, you’ll design something that looks “nice” and feels wrong in practice.

3. Design in something, but keep it Mac-shaped

If you’re already comfy with Figma etc, use whatever. If not, I’d honestly:

  • Use Sketch or Figma for screens
  • Use Affinity Designer for icons or branding if you want one-time purchase land
  • Keep everything in a single system file so you don’t end up with a mess of artboards

Important Mac-specific tips while you design:

  • Plan around a resizable window, not a fixed frame
    • Design a narrow, medium, and wide layout for your main window
  • Make room for a titlebar + toolbar
    • Don’t stick content in the top 44–60 pt as if it’s free space
  • Think about sidebars first
    • Mac apps love a left sidebar for navigation or content hierarchy
  • Account for scrollbars & overlays
    • On Mac they appear on hover/scroll and can cover content at edges

If you want to incorporate @mikeappsreviewer’s stack, great, but don’t let it distract you. The tool is secondary to how “Mac-like” your structure is.

4. Use Apple’s ready-made components to guide you

Even as a designer, it helps to know what you actually get “for free” in AppKit / SwiftUI. It changes how you design.

Look up:

  • NSToolbar / SwiftUI Toolbar
  • NSSplitView / NavigationSplitView
  • NSTableView / Table
  • NSCollectionView / LazyVGrid / LazyHGrid
  • NSWindow styles (full-size content view, titlebar behavior)

You don’t have to code yet. Just knowing these exist will stop you from inventing weird custom chrome that fights the OS.

If you are willing to dabble in SwiftUI, even a basic prototype will quickly show you which layout ideas are realistic and which are pain.

5. Prototype interactions, not just static screens

This is where a lot of new Mac app designs fall over. They design a pretty home screen and nothing about:

  • How keyboard shortcuts are surfaced
  • How menus are structured
  • What a user sees when they right-click
  • What happens when the user saves, closes, reopens

You can:

  • Use Figma’s prototyping for flows
  • Or use Principle if you really want to show motion & transitions
  • Or build a rough SwiftUI prototype to see it in a real Mac window

Static artboards won’t expose issues like: “oh, this filter is buried three levels deep but should clearly be in the toolbar” until very late.

6. Treat the menu bar, keyboard, and right-click as first-class

Coming from iOS mindsets, people forget these:

  • Every major action should appear:
    • In the menu bar
    • Often in a toolbar button
    • Often with a keyboard shortcut

Concrete steps:

  • Draft your menu bar hierarchy early in a text doc:
    • App, File, Edit, View, Window, Help
    • Then subcommands under each
  • Assign shortcuts:
    • Use common patterns: Cmd+N, Cmd+S, Cmd+W, Cmd+Shift+N, etc.
  • Decide what shows in
    • Context menus (right-click)
    • Tooltips on hover

This is where Mac apps feel “powerful” compared to a scaled-up mobile layout.

7. Use real content and real windows

When you design:

  • Mock up:
    • A nearly empty state
    • A “medium” realistic state
    • A crazy overloaded state (1000 items, long names, too much data)
  • Resize your frames to:
    • Very small window (like 1024×600)
    • Normal laptop size
    • External monitor wide

You’ll immediately see if your layout collapses, your sidebars are too rigid, or your toolbar icons get cut.

8. Tooling around the design process

Since you’re on a Mac, a few practical helpers that tie into your design workflow:

  • CloudMounter
    If you’re grabbing design assets, reference screenshots, and exports from different cloud storages, mounting them as drives in Finder makes life way easier. Instead of hunting through Google Drive in the browser, you just navigate in Finder like it’s another disk. Frees up brain space for actual design instead of file shuffling.

  • Screenshot reference:

    • Use Shift+Cmd+4 + Space to capture specific windows of existing apps you like
    • Drop those into your design file as reference layouts

9. How to actually start from zero, step-by-step

If I had to do a pure-from-scratch macOS app design tomorrow:

  1. Sketch rough structure on paper:
    • Is it document-based, or one main “workspace” window?
    • Does it have a sidebar + main content + optional inspector?
  2. Open several Apple apps and a couple third-party ones with similar complexity.
    • Copy rough layout proportions into reference frames.
  3. Read the macOS sections of HIG with that in mind.
  4. In Sketch / Figma:
    • Design 3 breakpoints for the main window.
    • Add a toolbar, menu structure, sidebar.
  5. Prototype key flows:
    • Opening/creating something
    • Editing something
    • Saving/exporting/sharing
  6. Optional: build a tiny SwiftUI prototype to sanity-check:
    • One window
    • One split view
    • A couple of lists and detail panels

If you share what kind of Mac app you’re aiming for (productivity, creative tool, utility, etc.), it’s possible to get even more specific about which patterns to copy and which to avoid, because “good Mac app design” looks a bit different for, say, a note-taking app vs a heavy media editor.

4

You’re not actually lost, you’re just stuck in iOS land. Different planet.

@​mikeappsreviewer covered the design tools buffet, @​voyageurdubois covered “how Mac apps behave.” I’d come at it slightly differently: start from the workflow you want, then pick tools and frameworks that match that.

Here’s a more “from zero” path that isn’t just “read HIG + use Figma”.

1. Decide what kind of Mac app you’re making first

Before tools / frameworks, answer:

  • Is it document-based? (files, projects, etc. like Pages, Sketch)
  • Is it a single workspace app? (like Things, Todoist)
  • Is it more like a utility or menu bar thing?

That choice drives almost everything:

  • Document apps → usually need proper File menu, multiple windows, recent documents, etc.
  • Workspace apps → often one main window with sidebar + content + inspector.
  • Utilities → often simpler UI but lots of system integration.

If you skip this, you’ll end up Frankensteining UI patterns from random apps.

2. Pick a framework mindset early

Slight disagreement with the “just look at components and don’t worry about code” angle. If your app is native, the tech stack actually does influence your design.

For new Mac apps, your realistic options:

  • SwiftUI first, AppKit when needed

    • Great for a modern, flexible layout
    • You get things like NavigationSplitView, Toolbar, Table pretty cheap
    • Some controls are still a bit rough on macOS, so you may hit edges

  • AppKit first, with SwiftUI views embedded

    • More work initially
    • Best if you want something very “pro app” / Xcode-like or need super custom behavior

At design time, this matters because:

  • SwiftUI is very good at adaptive layouts, so don’t hard-freeze your UI to one size.
  • AppKit gives you more control over old-school stuff like NSTableView, NSOutlineView, etc.

You don’t need to master them now, but at least look at sample screenshots in Apple docs so you’re not designing controls that will be a nightmare to implement.

3. Don’t start in Figma, start in plain text + rectangles

The others already gave good design-tool lists, so I’ll push a different angle:

  1. Open a notes app.

  2. Write out:

    • Top-level screens / modes your app has
    • Core actions users need in each
    • Where those actions might live
      • Menu bar
      • Toolbar
      • Right-click
      • Keyboard shortcut

  3. Then sketch 2 or 3 super ugly layouts:

    • Sidebar + content
    • Content only, floating inspector
    • Split view with resizable panes

Do this on paper or basic shapes in Sketch / Figma. This step saves you from the “beautiful but useless” mock stage.

4. Steal layout patterns from specific apps

Instead of just browsing macOS apps randomly like @​voyageurdubois suggested, pick 1 or 2 apps close to your use case and clone their structure.

Examples:

  • If you’re building:
    • Notes / writing → study Notes + Bear + Ulysses
    • Task / project app → study Things + OmniFocus
    • File / asset manager → study Finder + ForkLift
    • Data-heavy app → study Numbers + Airtable’s Mac wrapper

Take screenshots of:

  • Narrow window
  • Medium
  • Full width

Drop them into your design file and literally trace over proportions and behaviors. You’ll learn more from that than from three chapters of HIG.

5. Design “macOS density” on purpose

New designers often make Mac apps that look like giant iOS screens: huge padding, giant touch-friendly buttons.

On macOS:

  • Controls can be denser and smaller
  • Tables and lists should show a lot of information without looking like a spreadsheet from 1999
  • Right-click and hover affordances matter a ton

Try this:

  • First version: design it “nice and airy”
  • Second version: compress vertical padding by ~25% and shrink type slightly
  • Then ask: which one do you want to live in 6 hours a day?

The “pro” feel usually comes from a bit more density and keyboard-focusability.

6. Wire keyboard & menu behavior into your design doc

Another tiny disagreement with the usual “we’ll figure menus later” approach: on Mac that’s backwards.

  • Draft your menu structure before you finalize the toolbar
  • Put keyboard shortcuts in your design specs from day one

Example:

File

  • New… ⌘N
  • Open… ⌘O
  • Close Window ⌘W

View

  • Show Sidebar ⌥⌘S
  • Toggle Inspector ⌥⌘I

Now your toolbar design becomes easier: it surfaces the most common of these, instead of inventing actions in isolation.

7. Use actual macOS apps as reference, not Dribbble shots

Take advantage of macOS itself:

  • Use ⌘⇧4 then Space to grab screenshots of individual windows of apps you like.
  • Create one “reference” page in your design file and dump these there.
  • Annotate:
    • How do they handle empty state?
    • What does “loading” look like?
    • What changes when the window is tiny?

You’ll notice patterns like:

  • Toolbars rarely have 12 unrelated icons. 4 to 7 core actions is common.
  • Sidebars often have clearly separated sections (e.g. “On My Mac” vs “iCloud” in Finder).

8. Organize your assets & files like an adult

Minor but affects your sanity:

  • Make one folder per app concept:
    YourAppName/Design/
  • Inside: 01_wireframes, 02_hi-fi, 03_assets, etc.

You’ll quickly accumulate screenshots, exports, and reference files. If some of that lives in Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc, something like CloudMounter can actually help. It mounts those cloud storages as drives in Finder, so all your references and exports behave like local folders. Way less context switching, plus you’re not hunting for “final-final-v3.sketch” in browser tabs.

It’s not “design” in the visual sense, but keeping all your macOS design work in one place, regardless of which cloud it lives on, keeps you from drowning in your own files.

9. Quick concrete starter stack

Ignoring what I’d “ideally” use and just going with what actually works to get a first Mac app design out:

  • Sketch or Figma
    For main flows and layouts
  • Affinity Designer
    For app icon, logos, any illustration work
  • A basic SwiftUI prototype in Xcode
    Even if it’s ugly, just to feel the windowing & resizing behavior
  • CloudMounter
    Optional, but very handy if your assets are scattered across multiple cloud services

If you say what you’re actually building (notes, code tool, media app, tiny menu bar thing, etc.), people here can point you at very specific Mac apps to copy structure from and which frameworks to lean on, instead of “just follow HIG and use Figma.”

5

Skip the iOS tutorials for a bit and start from the “Mac-ness” of your app instead of the tooling.

1. Learn what feels native on macOS

  • Go through Apple’s official Human Interface Guidelines for macOS and literally keep them open while you design.
  • Study a few great modern Mac apps in your category. Screenshot their toolbars, sidebars, preference windows, and menus. You’ll see patterns:
    • Left sidebar for navigation
    • Split views, source lists, and table views
    • Real menu bar usage, not just in‑window menus
    • Command-key shortcuts for almost everything

I actually disagree a bit with leaning too hard on Figma for your first Mac app. It can make you think too “mobile-first” and too frame-based. For macOS, big resizable windows, flexible layouts, and dense controls matter more than perfectly crafted mobile-like artboards.

2. Start with Apple’s own tools for structure

Use Xcode + SwiftUI previews early, even if you are “just designing”:

  • Drop in basic controls: NavigationSplitView, toolbars, sidebars, sheets, popovers.
  • Play with system materials, vibrancy, and default spacing.
  • This gives you a truthful sense of how your app will actually scale and feel. Sketches and Figma mockups often lie about spacing and typography on macOS.

Think of @voyageurdubois and @mikeappsreviewer as giving you the “which design app” perspective. I’d flip it: treat Xcode as your layout sandbox and use design tools mainly for icons, diagrams, and marketing visuals.

3. Design system first, screens second

Before wireframing every screen, define:

  • Type scale based on system fonts (SF Pro, SF Mono).
  • A few semantic colors that map cleanly to light/dark mode.
  • A component kit that mirrors macOS patterns:
    • Toolbar buttons (segmented & regular)
    • Sidebar rows, list rows
    • Forms in a Preferences window
      Build those once, then recombine them, just like you would with SwiftUI components.

4. Asset & file workflow on a Mac

This is where something like CloudMounter actually matters in practice if you are hopping between machines or working with others.

CloudMounter pros:

  • Mounts multiple cloud storages as if they were local disks in Finder.
  • Keeps your design files, exported assets, screenshots, and reference libraries accessible without juggling web UIs.
  • Nice when your icons live in one place, UI mockups somewhere else, and dev handoff assets in yet another service.

CloudMounter cons:

  • Adds another layer in your stack, so if it hiccups, your assets feel “missing.”
  • Not a full project management or versioning tool, so you still need Git / Figma / Sketch libraries for real version control.
  • If your connection is flaky, browsing large folders can drag.

Paired with your editor of choice, it keeps you from drowning in Download folders. The others have already praised the design apps themselves; I think this boring file plumbing is what actually keeps you moving.

5. Practice on a tiny real Mac utility

Instead of inventing a huge app, pick a simple, very “desktop” idea:

  • A menu bar timer
  • A little screenshot organizer
  • A clipboard manager

Design the menu bar icon, one main window, a Preferences window, and real keyboard shortcuts. That micro‑project teaches you almost all the core macOS UX patterns on a small surface area.

If you post what category your app is in (productivity, creative, dev tool, etc.), people can suggest more specific macOS patterns you should copy or avoid.