Concept Map Software Free Download Mac
Mind mapping is a creative do for brainstorming and finding connections. Used correct, it can exist a super powerful way to generate new ideas, or connect related ones.
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To make a mind map, you offset by writing a central idea or theme in the middle of a blank canvas of paper. Then you draw lines branching out into new "nodes," each with its own related idea or theme. From those nodes, y'all draw yet more lines branching deeper into the unlike concepts, and you go on going, branching out more and diving deeper, until y'all're out of ideas—and the relationships between things appear.
Of course, mind mapping on a slice of paper has its downsides. You lot're limited by the size of the canvass you first with, there's no easy way to digitize information technology and brand information technology searchable, you can't undo any mistakes or easily make edits, and if you lose your listen map, you don't have a backup. That's why, if you lot practise a lot of listen mapping, you should consider going digital and using an app.
Nosotros reviewed close to twoscore different mind mapping tools, and after thoroughly testing them, here are the nine best. One of them is sure to exist the right style to map your mind.
The 9 all-time mind mapping tools in 2021
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Coggle for mind map beginners
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Mindly for mobile mind mapping
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MindMup for creating public mind maps
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MindMeister for collaborating on a listen map with a squad
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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 modern approach to mind mapping
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MindNode for Apple users
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SimpleMind for not having to subscribe to anything
What makes for slap-up mind mapping software?
How we evaluate and test apps
All of our best apps roundups are written by humans who've spent much of their careers using, testing, and writing well-nigh software. We spend dozens of hours researching and testing apps, using each app as information technology's intended to exist used and evaluating it against the criteria we gear up for the category. We'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 than details on our process, read the total 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 piece of work. Yes, it has some downsides, just for a mind mapping app to really be amend, it has to bring quite a lot to the tabular array. While every 1 of the mind mapping tools on this list has its own unique benefits, they all meet at least the following criteria:
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It'southward actually a listen mapping app. A lot of drawing, diagramming, and charting apps are marketed equally mind mapping apps—but they aren't. While it'southward true you lot tin brand a listen map in them, you could theoretically also utilize PowerPoint, Photoshop, or MS Paint. These kinds of apps generally lack features that brand heed mapping easy, like automatically linking nodes, brainstorming modes that allow y'all become a lot of concepts down chop-chop, and search. For an app to brand this listing, we dug by the marketing and made sure it was designed from the footing upward for brainstorming, not cartoon.
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It gets out of the way. Mind mapping with a pen and newspaper is ridiculously easy. No app is ever going to exist quite every bit elementary, but they should come up as close equally possible. Subsequently a brusk learning period to get upward to speed, you shouldn't have to stop and think to create a node, or dig through menus to connect two ideas. The app should just fade into the groundwork—the same way your spider web browser does.
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Information technology offers an unlimited sail. One of the main downsides to using paper is, well, the paper. A digital app should have a practically unlimited canvas size so yous can make a mind map as big as you want. Using an app is all about overcoming the analog downsides, not reinforcing them.
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It allows you lot to attach files. Sometimes y'all need more a few words to fully illustrate a concept—and doodling is a large office of analog listen mapping. For an app to make this listing, you demand to be able to attach images, videos, documents, web pages, and other assorted extras to your mind maps.
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It allows you to save and consign. You can't easily edit, save, or share your paper heed maps, so 1 of the big reasons to become digital is that yous tin. All these apps let you come back to a mind map later and change it up, save it, and export it in different formats, so yous tin send information technology to your colleagues, classmates, or anyone else you like.
Looking to further meliorate your team's online collaboration? Try i of these workflows that add together automation, so you can streamline the procedure.
Best listen mapping software for beginners
Coggle (Web)
The moment you showtime a diagram in Coggle, you'll see the central node of a new mind map, forth with an enticing plus sign to become started adding new nodes and ideas. Each time you click on the plus sign to create a new child node, Coggle volition automatically choose the management, placement, and color of the new node. But you tin e'er drag the nodes effectually to rearrange things into a format that fits your layout a little better. Or you tin correct-click on them and select Choose Style to alter the colour, or if you're on the Crawly program, the line style and thickness of the connections.
If you prefer to employ keyboard shortcuts during your heed mapping process, at that place's a cheat sheet of keyboard shortcuts in the bottom-right corner of the canvass. Click the green X icon to hide it and the green question mark 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 you can get as fancy as y'all need to while adding your text, images, and links to the canvas.
If y'all desire to bounce some ideas off a colleague, you lot can become ahead and add them to your mind map, deport on a conversation in the letters sidebar, or go into full-screen presentation mode to take a step dorsum and do more than high-level ideation.
Coggle Pricing: Complimentary for up to 3 private diagrams; $5/calendar month for unlimited individual diagrams and extra mind mapping tools (similar additional shapes and color control).
Best mind mapping software for mobile
Mindly (macOS, iOS, Android)
Mind mapping on a mobile device comes with a lot of special challenges, thanks to minor screen sizes, the inconvenience of scrolling and zooming, and the readability bug that accompany all that. But Mindly's outside-the-box thinking makes mind mapping on a smartphone possible—and, honestly, pretty fun.
Like nigh listen maps, you'll first with your fundamental node, add text and icons, and modify the color if you want. Then, information technology's fourth dimension to beginning adding any associative ideas in the surrounding circle. To do this, tap on the + icon on the outer circle: Mindly volition automatically create a new node and zoom in to let y'all focus on the matter at hand. As you go deeper into sub-ideas (and sub-sub-ideas!), y'all'll e'er exist able to find your way dorsum to the original center node past tapping on the circle in the top-left corner of the screen.
Mindly keeps things organized past folding away any sub-ideas equally yous work your way back toward your main node. Yous can drill back down into any node by tapping on it, or tap the arrow icon in the bottom-right and then Mindmap to run into a mind map overview of everything. From the same carte du jour, you can also print or share your mind map.
Of class, you can also sync your mobile mind maps with the desktop version of Mindly, so you tin can switch from on-the-go ideation to formal mind mapping sessions at your desk.
Mindly Pricing: Costless mobile version includes three listen maps each with up to 100 elements; $6.99 on iOS and $5.49 on Android for additional features, including unlimited elements, passcode, and search; $29.99 on macOS.
Best listen mapping software for creating public mind maps
MindMup (Spider web)
MindMup is an like shooting fish in a barrel-to-employ heed mapping app—and you don't fifty-fifty need an account to get started.
The toolbar at the top provides quick links to all the bones needs of heed mapping, from changing the color of each node to calculation detailed text and file attachments. But information technology's the ability to publish and share your mind maps that sets MindMup apart.
While many mind mapping tools crave at to the lowest degree an email address, MindMup allows anyone to create and mail public mind maps. Free mind maps are automatically deleted after six months, but if you're using information technology for a quick brainstorming session, that does the play a trick on. If you want to sign upwards or save individual maps, you have to pay $2.99/month for MindMup Personal Gold.
MindMup Pricing: Free for public maps up to 100 KB; from $2.99/month for MindMup Personal Gilt that includes larger, private maps and collaboration.
Best mind mapping software for collaborating with a team
MindMeister (Web, iOS, Android)
MindMeister is a robust tool that includes everything from quick keyboard shortcuts to the ability to embed live videos inside your nodes. And its collaboration features are extensive: you lot can add team members to your listen map, upvote and downvote ideas, and leave comments.
MindMeister is endemic by the same people that brand MeisterTask, a web-based, kanban-manner project management app. The two tools are integrated so you tin turn your begin 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 inside MeisterTask—which even integrates with Zapier.
As of this writing, MindMeister is in the process of beta testing a new editor. You lot can try it out yourself by clicking Open with New Editor in any mind map. Information technology's got a cleaner, more minimalist user interface that, if anything, is even easier to utilise. Not all the features of the sometime MindMeister editor have been ported notwithstanding, like inserting live videos, so we're flagging this more equally a bespeak of interest. MindMeister still makes this listing on the strength of its existing app, not the promise of the beta.
For an in-depth look at what a sample MindMeister/MeisterTask projection might look like, take time to read through our article about how to jumpstart new projects with mind maps.
MindMeister Pricing: Free for the Basic plan that includes up to three mind maps and real-fourth dimension collaboration. From $4.99/month for the Personal plan that includes unlimited mind maps, file attachments, and PDF exports.
All-time mind mapping software for fluid, non-traditional listen mapping
Scapple (macOS, Windows)
Most mind maps crave you lot to begin with a primal node, branching outward from that single betoken as your listen comes up with new ideas and associations. But if you're using Scapple, you accept more than flexibility in terms of where your visual heed map leads.
For case, you're not limited to starting your mind map with a central theme. Instead, y'all might start with a tiny idea, then piece of work "astern" to find the main idea. And Scapple lets it all happen organically, since individual nodes will only connect when you lot tell them to by dragging and dropping 1 on top of the other. In this way, complex relationships tin be sketched out chop-chop, without losing the period of rapid ideation. One handy trick is to use background shapes (right-click and then New > Background Shape to add one) to create buckets for different groups of ideas. You lot tin can then move things about and link them equally needed.
When compared with some of the other listen mapping apps on this list, Scapple's interface is relatively simple. You tin't even style a annotation unless you lot activate the inspector past going to View > Prove Inspector. But that simplicity also gives y'all the ultimate flexibility in terms of what goes where and how things should await.
One great touch is that the 30-24-hour interval free trial is for 30 days of use, not thirty consecutive days. Use Scapple a couple of times a month and it'due south free for almost a twelvemonth.
Scapple Pricing: 30-day gratuitous trial; $18 for the Mac or Windows app.
Best listen mapping software for in-person mind mapping sessions
Stormboard (Web)
Stormboard puts a twist on traditional listen mapping by using viscous 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 correspond connections during the initial mind map creation, and so add the visual correlations with lines after.
In that location's even a "rapid-fire" way that will pop up a new sticky note the minute y'all mail the one prior, then you can literally type out your ideas one later on some other with no actress effort—and salvage the organization for later.
Stormboard also makes it easy to get your entire team involved in the process, since collaborators can record comments, create tasks, and add their votes to each idea. Plus, you tin automate the procedure with Stormboard'southward Zapier integrations, creating ideas and storms automatically whenever trigger events happen in the other apps you use most. For case, new Trello cards or GitHub issues tin can automatically pop up on a dedicated board.
Stormboard Pricing: Gratis for the Personal Program that includes a maximum of 5 stormboards; from $5/month for the Startup Plan that offers admission to additional features like advanced recording, live editing on Microsoft Role Online, template section labels, and boosted consign options.
If you're gravitating toward creating your mind maps with sticky notes, y'all might too consider Padlet or MURAL.
Best mind mapping software for a modern mind mapping approach
Ayoa (Spider web, iOS, Android, macOS, Windows)
Ayoa is the follow-upwardly to i of our previous mind mapping picks, iMindMap. It was created past Chris Griffiths, a mind mapping adept and author who has collaborated with Tony Buzan, the man responsible for popularizing heed mapping in the 1970s. Put simply, it's got a serious mind mapping pedigree—and it shows.
Open Ayoa, and you have a selection of making an Organic Map, a Speed Map, or a Radial Map. You can as well brand a Whiteboard if you're doing some more corporate-style brainstorming.
The Organic Map is the most traditional, and mimics the kind of thing you'd draw with a pen and paper. You aren't confined to just putting words in boxes. Instead, you're encouraged to label the swooshing, Sharpie-like branches that connect dissimilar ideas. It's a much more natural process than a lot of the other apps.
A Speed Map is similar, but with a stripped-down setup designed for rapid brainstorming. You're almost forced to use keyboard shortcuts, like Tab for a new kid branch and Enter for a new sibling branch, as the buttons to do the same are hidden away unless you deliberately click on a node. It's great when you lot want to ideate rapidly.
A Radial Map is a totally modern approach to mind mapping. Instead of nodes and lines, every idea becomes role of a serial of concentric circles. A peripheral segment of your central thought becomes the center of its ain circumvolve of ideas as you lot move outward. It's mind mapping that's moving beyond the limits of what tin fifty-fifty be imagined with newspaper.
And Ayoa isn't just limited to basic (and not-so-basic) mind mapping. The chat, real-time collaboration, whiteboard, and job direction features arrive platonic if you're role of a small team looking to realize your ideas. Ayoa is also nether rapid evolution and then it's worth keeping an eye on their roadmap to run across what features are coming down the line. When we reviewed this app terminal year, the whiteboard features didn't exist.
Ayoa Pricing: Free Basic plan with up to 5 boards, 50 branches per lath, and existent-time collaboration; $thirteen/month Pro plan with unlimited boards, file attachments, and the power to consign your mind maps.
Best mind mapping software for Apple users
MindNode (iOS, macOS)
Most mind mapping apps are web apps and, if there'due south a native app available, it's really simply a shell for the web app. It's fine if you want the collaboration, sharing, and other features you get with an online service, merely what if yous only want a simple manner to brainstorm by yourself?
MindNode, a native Mac, iPhone, and iPad app, is perfect for Apple tree users. Start a new map on one device and it instantly syncs to your other devices using iCloud. The app is just equally piece of cake to utilize (and as powerful) whether you prefer to tap the plus icon to add a new node on your iPhone or click information technology on your Mac. And since it's a fully native app, no internet connection? No trouble.
MindNode also has a load of other features that will continue you lot happy if you're deep in Apple'south ecosystem, similar a Watch app, Apple Pencil support, and integration with popular to-do apps Apple Reminders, Things, and OmniFocus. Select whatever node, and click Add Job to plow it into a to-do item. Or click the share menu and Export to Things (or OmniFocus), and your mind map volition go converted into a projection in your called app with all your to-dos fix to exist checked off. It'south a great way to turn a brainstorming session into something actionable.
MindNode Pricing: Free express Mac and iOS app; $2.49/month for MindNode Plus with image support, tasks, themes, and styling options.
Best mind mapping software without a subscription
SimpleMind (Windows, macOS, iOS, Android)
If you just make mind maps for yourself and have no need to collaborate with other people, it tin be painful to have to pay up every month for a subscription service or deal with the hard limits of a free one. What we love well-nigh near SimpleMind is that it'southward an affordable cross-platform app without a subscription fee that does basic mind mapping actually well. Information technology'due south far from the flashiest app on offering, just for many mind mappers, it might exist the all-time.
Open up SimpleMind, and you've got a blank canvas with a Cardinal Theme chimera to work with. Tap or click on it to change it to whatsoever idea you're listen mapping, then tap or click on the small plus icons to create new branches and nodes. It'south unproblematic and intuitive, and there are keyboard shortcuts aplenty on the desktop platforms. Every bit we said, not flashy—but done right.
And SimpleMind besides has a few extra features that make mind mapping even easier. There'due south an outline view that converts your mind map to a bulleted list, there's a brainstorm mode for throwing ideas out there fast, and you can even sync your mind maps across all your devices using whatsoever cloud platform you like.
SimpleMind Pricing: Free limited mobile apps; from €24.99 for Windows or macOS (€44.99 for both), $9.99 for iOS, and $viii.49 for Android.
Do you need a mind mapping app?
Listen mapping can be a keen way to generate and connect ideas, just unless you do it all the time, you probably don't need a defended app—or at least not a paid one. If none of the apps above seems similar the perfect fit, you practise have other options.
Outset, reconsider the pen-and-paper method. Information technology's actually difficult to beat, and you can always accept a photo of information technology to save it or share it. It'south not as tech-y equally an app, just information technology works.
Also, cheque out Diagrams.net. It doesn't accept the heed map-specific features required to brand this list, but information technology's a free diagramming app that's great for making the occasional mind map. It doesn't have any limits on the number of connections or nodes you can place or on how you share your heed map, different a lot of the free plans in more than feature-filled mind mapping apps.
This piece was originally published in February 2019 and has since been updated with contributions from Harry Guinness.
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Concept Map Software Free Download Mac
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