RetroMac BlogThe best retro Mac apps in 2026
There's a small but lovely scene of retro-leaning apps for modern Macs. Here are the ones I actually keep installed - shaders, dock mods, themed terminals, vintage browsers and games that still hold up.
Shaders & screen effects
For the CRT / VHS / LCD look on top of macOS, RetroMac is the pick. It's a menu-bar app with 30+ GPU shaders and per-app scoping.
See also: the CRT effect guide.
Vintage browsers
Reframe is a free, open-source browser that puts Netscape 4.8, IE 5, Safari 1.0 and Firefox 1.0 chrome around the modern web. Perfect companion to RetroMac.
Dock & desktop replacements
RetroMac ships with Mac OS 9, aqua-era Mac OS X, Win98 and NeXT docks. If you only want the dock swap without the shaders, its dock module runs standalone.
Themed terminals
iTerm2 with an amber phosphor color scheme + RetroMac's CRT shader scoped to just that window gives you a proper VT220 experience. See Game Boy & amber terminal themes for the full setup.
Games & emulators
OpenEmu remains the gold standard. Pair it with RetroMac's NTSC Composite preset and pixel art finally looks the way it was meant to on a 5K panel.
Try RetroMac yourself
Free · macOS 14+ · No account, no telemetry
FAQ
Are these apps free?
Most are free; a couple are one-time purchases. None of them are subscriptions.
Do they work on Apple Silicon?
Yes, all picks here are native on Apple Silicon (M1-M4).
Which one should I install first?
RetroMac - it covers shaders, dock and themes, so you can dial the retro level from subtle to maximal.
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