Download Mind Mapping Software for Mac
Heed mapping is a creative practise for brainstorming and finding connections. Used correct, it can be a super powerful way to generate new ideas, or connect related ones.
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To brand a heed map, you start past writing a key idea or theme in the middle of a blank sail of newspaper. And so you describe lines branching out into new "nodes," each with its own related thought or theme. From those nodes, you draw yet more lines branching deeper into the dissimilar concepts, and you keep going, branching out more and diving deeper, until you're out of ideas—and the relationships between things appear.
Of grade, mind mapping on a piece of paper has its downsides. You're express past the size of the sheet you start with, there'south no easy way to digitize it and make information technology searchable, you can't disengage whatsoever mistakes or easily brand edits, and if you lose your mind map, you don't accept a backup. That's why, if you do a lot of mind mapping, you should consider going digital and using an app.
We reviewed close to 40 unlike mind mapping tools, and later thoroughly testing them, hither are the nine best. One of them is sure to be the right way to map your listen.
The 9 all-time heed mapping tools in 2021
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Coggle for mind map beginners
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Mindly for mobile heed mapping
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MindMup for creating public mind maps
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MindMeister for collaborating on a heed map with a team
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Scapple for fluid, non-traditional mind mapping
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Stormboard for in-person mind mapping sessions
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Ayoa for a mod approach to heed mapping
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MindNode for Apple users
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SimpleMind for not having to subscribe to anything
What makes for great mind mapping software?
How we evaluate and test apps
All of our best apps roundups are written past humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing about software. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as information technology's intended to be used and evaluating it against the criteria we set for the category. Nosotros're never paid for placement in our articles from any app or for links to whatsoever site—we value the trust readers put in us to offer authentic evaluations of the categories and apps we review. For more details on our procedure, read the full rundown of how we select apps to feature on the Zapier blog.
Mind mapping with a sheet of paper and a pen is an incredibly intuitive and natural way to work. Yeah, information technology has some downsides, merely for a mind mapping app to actually exist amend, information technology has to bring quite a lot to the tabular array. While every one of the mind mapping tools on this list has its own unique benefits, they all come across at least the following criteria:
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It's actually a mind mapping app. A lot of cartoon, diagramming, and charting apps are marketed every bit mind mapping apps—only they aren't. While it's true you can brand a mind map in them, you could theoretically also use PowerPoint, Photoshop, or MS Paint. These kinds of apps generally lack features that make mind mapping piece of cake, like automatically linking nodes, brainstorming modes that let you get a lot of concepts down chop-chop, and search. For an app to make this list, nosotros dug past the marketing and fabricated sure it was designed from the footing up for brainstorming, not drawing.
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It gets out of the way. Heed mapping with a pen and paper is ridiculously easy. No app is ever going to be quite as uncomplicated, but they should come equally close as possible. After a brusk learning period to go up to speed, you lot shouldn't have to stop and think to create a node, or dig through menus to connect ii ideas. The app should just fade into the background—the same fashion your web browser does.
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It offers an unlimited canvass. I of the main downsides to using paper is, well, the paper. A digital app should have a practically unlimited canvas size so y'all can make a mind map as big as yous want. Using an app is all well-nigh overcoming the analog downsides, not reinforcing them.
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Information technology allows you to adhere files. Sometimes you need more than than a few words to fully illustrate a concept—and doodling is a big function of analog mind mapping. For an app to make this list, yous need to be able to attach images, videos, documents, web pages, and other assorted extras to your mind maps.
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It allows y'all to relieve and consign. You tin't easily edit, relieve, or share your paper mind maps, so ane of the big reasons to go digital is that you tin. All these apps allow you come back to a mind map subsequently and alter it upwardly, salvage it, and export it in unlike formats, so you tin can ship it to your colleagues, classmates, or anyone else you like.
Looking to further amend your team'due south online collaboration? Endeavor one of these workflows that add automation, so you tin can streamline the procedure.
Best mind mapping software for beginners
Coggle (Web)
The moment you start a diagram in Coggle, you'll run across the key node of a new heed map, along with an enticing plus sign to get started adding new nodes and ideas. Each fourth dimension you click on the plus sign to create a new kid node, Coggle will automatically cull the direction, placement, and color of the new node. Only you can always drag the nodes around to rearrange things into a format that fits your layout a little better. Or you can right-click on them and select Choose Style to alter the color, or if you're on the Awesome plan, the line mode and thickness of the connections.
If you lot prefer to use keyboard shortcuts during your listen mapping process, there's a crook sheet of keyboard shortcuts in the lesser-right corner of the canvas. Click the green 10 icon to hide it and the greenish question marker icon to bring it dorsum.
One of our favorite features is that Coggle lets you format your mind map items and messages with Markdown, so yous can become as fancy as yous demand to while adding your text, images, and links to the sheet.
If you want to bounciness some ideas off a colleague, y'all can go ahead and add together them to your mind map, deport on a conversation in the messages sidebar, or become into full-screen presentation style to take a step back and do more high-level ideation.
Coggle Pricing: Complimentary for up to three private diagrams; $5/month for unlimited individual diagrams and actress mind mapping tools (like additional shapes and color control).
Best heed mapping software for mobile
Mindly (macOS, iOS, Android)
Mind mapping on a mobile device comes with a lot of special challenges, thank you to small screen sizes, the inconvenience of scrolling and zooming, and the readability issues that accompany all that. Simply Mindly's outside-the-box thinking makes mind mapping on a smartphone possible—and, honestly, pretty fun.
Similar most mind maps, you'll offset with your primal node, add together text and icons, and change the color if you want. Then, it's time to start adding any associative ideas in the surrounding circle. To do this, tap on the + icon on the outer circumvolve: Mindly will automatically create a new node and zoom in to let you focus on the matter at manus. Every bit you go deeper into sub-ideas (and sub-sub-ideas!), you lot'll always exist able to find your mode back to the original center node by tapping on the circle in the top-left corner of the screen.
Mindly keeps things organized by folding away any sub-ideas as you lot work your way dorsum toward your principal node. Y'all can drill dorsum down into any node by borer on information technology, or tap the arrow icon in the bottom-right and then Mindmap to see a mind map overview of everything. From the aforementioned menu, you lot can also print or share your mind map.
Of course, you can likewise sync your mobile mind maps with the desktop version of Mindly, then you tin switch from on-the-become ideation to formal mind mapping sessions at your desk.
Mindly Pricing: Gratis mobile version includes iii listen maps each with upwardly to 100 elements; $six.99 on iOS and $five.49 on Android for additional features, including unlimited elements, passcode, and search; $29.99 on macOS.
Best mind mapping software for creating public mind maps
MindMup (Web)
MindMup is an easy-to-use mind mapping app—and you don't even need an account to become started.
The toolbar at the height provides quick links to all the basic needs of mind mapping, from changing the colour of each node to adding detailed text and file attachments. But information technology's the ability to publish and share your heed maps that sets MindMup apart.
While many mind mapping tools require at least an email address, MindMup allows anyone to create and post public mind maps. Free listen maps are automatically deleted after half dozen months, only if you're using it for a quick brainstorming session, that does the flim-flam. If you want to sign up or save private maps, you have to pay $ii.99/calendar month for MindMup Personal Gilt.
MindMup Pricing: Free for public maps upward to 100 KB; from $2.99/month for MindMup Personal Gold that includes larger, private maps and collaboration.
All-time mind mapping software for collaborating with a team
MindMeister (Spider web, iOS, Android)
MindMeister is a robust tool that includes everything from quick keyboard shortcuts to the power to embed alive videos inside your nodes. And its collaboration features are extensive: you tin add team members to your mind map, upvote and downvote ideas, and go out comments.
MindMeister is owned past the same people that brand MeisterTask, a spider web-based, kanban-style project management app. The two tools are integrated so y'all can turn your brainstorm session into an actionable project, assigning individual items on a mind map to members of your team, tracking task progress, and syncing it all with your other project boards within MeisterTask—which even integrates with Zapier.
As of this writing, MindMeister is in the process of beta testing a new editor. You can endeavour information technology out yourself by clicking Open with New Editor in any listen map. Information technology'southward got a cleaner, more minimalist user interface that, if anything, is even easier to use. Not all the features of the old MindMeister editor have been ported yet, like inserting live videos, then we're flagging this more every bit a point of involvement. MindMeister withal makes this list on the strength of its existing app, not the promise of the beta.
For an in-depth look at what a sample MindMeister/MeisterTask project might await like, accept time to read through our article virtually how to jumpstart new projects with heed maps.
MindMeister Pricing: Free for the Bones plan that includes upwards to three mind maps and real-time collaboration. From $four.99/month for the Personal programme that includes unlimited listen maps, file attachments, and PDF exports.
All-time heed mapping software for fluid, not-traditional listen mapping
Scapple (macOS, Windows)
Almost mind maps crave yous to begin with a central node, branching outward from that unmarried signal as your mind comes upward with new ideas and associations. Just if yous're using Scapple, you have more flexibility in terms of where your visual heed map leads.
For example, y'all're not limited to starting your listen map with a central theme. Instead, you might outset with a tiny idea, and then work "backward" to find the main thought. And Scapple lets information technology all happen organically, since individual nodes will merely connect when you tell them to by dragging and dropping ane on meridian of the other. In this mode, complex relationships can be sketched out quickly, without losing the menstruation of rapid ideation. One handy play a joke on is to use background shapes (right-click then New > Background Shape to add one) to create buckets for different groups of ideas. Y'all can then move things about and link them as needed.
When compared with some of the other mind mapping apps on this list, Scapple's interface is relatively simple. Y'all can't fifty-fifty style a note unless you lot activate the inspector by going to View > Show Inspector. But that simplicity also gives you the ultimate flexibility in terms of what goes where and how things should wait.
One great touch on is that the 30-twenty-four hour period free trial is for 30 days of utilize, not 30 consecutive days. Use Scapple a couple of times a month and information technology'southward free for nigh a year.
Scapple Pricing: 30-solar day free trial; $18 for the Mac or Windows app.
Best mind mapping software for in-person heed mapping sessions
Stormboard (Web)
Stormboard puts a twist on traditional mind mapping by using gummy notes and index cards, rather than nodes and branches, to record your ideas. You'll group your notes on different parts of the screen to represent connections during the initial listen map creation, so add the visual correlations with lines afterwards.
There's even a "rapid-burn down" mode that will popular upwards a new sticky note the minute you post the one prior, so you can literally type out your ideas one after some other with no actress effort—and save the arrangement for later.
Stormboard also makes it piece of cake to become your entire squad involved in the process, since collaborators can record comments, create tasks, and add their votes to each idea. Plus, y'all can automate the process with Stormboard'south Zapier integrations, creating ideas and storms automatically whenever trigger events happen in the other apps you use most. For example, new Trello cards or GitHub issues can automatically popular up on a dedicated board.
Stormboard Pricing: Gratis for the Personal Programme that includes a maximum of 5 stormboards; from $five/month for the Startup Plan that offers admission to additional features like advanced recording, live editing on Microsoft Office Online, template section labels, and additional export options.
If you're gravitating toward creating your mind maps with mucilaginous notes, you lot might also consider Padlet or Mural.
Best mind mapping software for a modern mind mapping arroyo
Ayoa (Web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows)
Ayoa is the follow-up to ane of our previous mind mapping picks, iMindMap. It was created past Chris Griffiths, a mind mapping practiced and author who has collaborated with Tony Buzan, the man responsible for popularizing mind mapping in the 1970s. Put simply, it's got a serious mind mapping pedigree—and information technology shows.
Open Ayoa, and you have a choice of making an Organic Map, a Speed Map, or a Radial Map. You can also make a Whiteboard if yous're doing some more than corporate-style brainstorming.
The Organic Map is the almost traditional, and mimics the kind of thing yous'd describe with a pen and newspaper. You aren't bars to just putting words in boxes. Instead, you're encouraged to label the swooshing, Sharpie-like branches that connect different ideas. It's a much more natural procedure than a lot of the other apps.
A Speed Map is similar, but with a stripped-down setup designed for rapid brainstorming. Y'all're nigh forced to utilize keyboard shortcuts, like Tab for a new child branch and Enter for a new sibling branch, equally the buttons to do the same are hidden away unless you deliberately click on a node. It's great when yous want to ideate apace.
A Radial Map is a totally modernistic approach to listen mapping. Instead of nodes and lines, every thought becomes function of a serial of concentric circles. A peripheral segment of your key idea becomes the center of its own circle of ideas as you motility outward. It's mind mapping that's moving beyond the limits of what can even be imagined with paper.
And Ayoa isn't just limited to basic (and not-and so-bones) mind mapping. The chat, real-fourth dimension collaboration, whiteboard, and chore management features arrive ideal if you're part of a modest team looking to realize your ideas. Ayoa is also nether rapid development then it'due south worth keeping an eye on their roadmap to encounter what features are coming down the line. When nosotros reviewed this app last twelvemonth, the whiteboard features didn't exist.
Ayoa Pricing: Free Basic plan with upwardly to 5 boards, 50 branches per board, and real-time collaboration; $13/month Pro programme with unlimited boards, file attachments, and the ability to consign your listen maps.
Best mind mapping software for Apple tree users
MindNode (iOS, macOS)
Near listen mapping apps are spider web apps and, if there's a native app available, it'south really just a shell for the spider web app. It's fine if you desire the collaboration, sharing, and other features y'all become with an online service, but what if yous just want a simple style to brainstorm by yourself?
MindNode, a native Mac, iPhone, and iPad app, is perfect for Apple tree users. Start a new map on i device and information technology instantly syncs to your other devices using iCloud. The app is simply as easy to employ (and every bit powerful) whether y'all prefer to tap the plus icon to add together a new node on your iPhone or click it on your Mac. And since information technology's a fully native app, no internet connection? No trouble.
MindNode also has a load of other features that will keep you happy if you're deep in Apple'southward ecosystem, like a Watch app, Apple tree Pencil support, and integration with popular to-do apps Apple Reminders, Things, and OmniFocus. Select whatsoever node, and click Add Chore to plow it into a to-do item. Or click the share menu and Export to Things (or OmniFocus), and your mind map will get converted into a project in your called app with all your to-dos ready to exist checked off. It'south a swell way to turn a brainstorming session into something actionable.
MindNode Pricing: Gratuitous limited Mac and iOS app; $two.49/calendar month for MindNode Plus with image support, tasks, themes, and styling options.
All-time mind mapping software without a subscription
SimpleMind (Windows, macOS, iOS, Android)
If you lot just make mind maps for yourself and accept no need to collaborate with other people, it can exist painful to accept to pay up every calendar month for a subscription service or deal with the hard limits of a free one. What we honey most most SimpleMind is that it's an affordable cross-platform app without a subscription fee that does bones mind mapping actually well. Information technology's far from the flashiest app on offer, but for many mind mappers, it might be the best.
Open SimpleMind, and you've got a blank sail with a Cardinal Theme bubble to work with. Tap or click on it to alter it to whatever idea you're mind mapping, and then tap or click on the pocket-size plus icons to create new branches and nodes. Information technology's simple and intuitive, and there are keyboard shortcuts aplenty on the desktop platforms. As we said, not flashy—only done right.
And SimpleMind besides has a few actress features that brand mind mapping even easier. There'south an outline view that converts your mind map to a bulleted list, there'south a brainstorm way for throwing ideas out there fast, and yous tin can even sync your mind maps across all your devices using whatever cloud platform y'all similar.
SimpleMind Pricing: Free limited mobile apps; from €24.99 for Windows or macOS (€44.99 for both), $9.99 for iOS, and $8.49 for Android.
Do you lot need a mind mapping app?
Mind mapping can be a keen manner to generate and connect ideas, just unless you do it all the time, you probably don't need a dedicated app—or at to the lowest degree non a paid one. If none of the apps higher up seems like the perfect fit, y'all practise accept other options.
Offset, reconsider the pen-and-paper method. It'due south actually hard to beat, and you can ever accept a photo of it to save information technology or share information technology. Information technology's not as tech-y as an app, just it works.
Besides, check out Diagrams.net. Information technology doesn't have the mind map-specific features required to make this list, just information technology'south a free diagramming app that's slap-up for making the occasional mind map. It doesn't have whatever limits on the number of connections or nodes you lot can place or on how you share your mind map, unlike a lot of the free plans in more feature-filled heed mapping apps.
This piece was originally published in February 2019 and has since been updated with contributions from Harry Guinness.
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Download Mind Mapping Software for Mac
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