Welcome to the internet’s biggest list of free software for students , here you’ll find every single program you may need to get through school.
No matter what you study as you’ll see a lot of these programs will be extremely useful for anything school related, they’ll save you tons of times with assignments and when using a computer to improve your performance to get a better grade.
The best part is: as long as you remain a student the entire list is for free!
I’ve compiled this list having in mind all concentrations and areas of studies. There’s a software useful for pretty much every student out there so you can share it with your buddies and bookmark it. Use the table of contents and check out the details of the section you are interested in.
Note Taking
| 1. OneNote |
OS: Mac, Windows |
| The best note taking software used by students. You can attach pictures, videos, audio files. You can use either a pen or a keyboard to get your notes down. Compatible with phone devices too. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
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| 2. LibreOffice |
OS: Mac, Windows, Linux |
| A free and open source alternative to Microsoft Office for documents, presentations and spreadsheets. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 3. Open Office |
OS: Mac, Windows, Linux |
| The original replacement for Microsoft Office. The software has now two different versions. Regardless this is the original and still a useful Office Replacement. Includes: A word processor, a spreadsheet, presentation app, drawing app, formula editor and a database management application. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 4. AbiWord |
OS: Windows , Linux |
| If you all need is a word processor, AbiWord is a great replacement to Microsoft Word. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
Reading
| 5. Adobe Reader |
OS: Mac, Windows, iOS, Android |
| Not much to say here. If for some reason you don’t have it in your computer , it’s time to download it. This is going to be your default reader application in school |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 6. ReadCube |
OS: Mac, Windows, iOS, Android |
| You can also view PDF files with it but unlike Adobe, you can annotate , organize and interact with your document in many different and useful ways. Ex: easily export citations, quickly look up the author’s details for other publishing,etc. An excellent tool for going over a document. take notes on it and fully study the subject. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 7. Skim |
OS: Mac |
| This a Mac PDF Viewer where you can also annotate and have a lot of features such as: highlighting, snapshots, crops of your document, exporting your notes to a different file and more. Great for any scientific & research paper you may come across. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 8. WinDjview |
OS: Windows |
| There will be a few files, documents that will only come .djvu format and unfortunately good ol’ Adobe or Microsoft Word won’t even be able to get a preview. While there many djvu readers out there they can all be troublesome and painstaking to make them work without hiccups or errors. I found this one the more reliable. For Mac, you can use DjvuLibre. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
Writing Papers
| 9. Latex |
OS: Mac, Windows |
| You ever wondered how come some academic papers you see online or your teacher has handed in look extremely neat and nice despite having complex graphics, writing and equations. They are probably using Latex and you should too. Getting acquianted with it will boost your chances to get extra credit for every class that needs you to hand in reports or research paper. Learn more how to use it from the Latex Project Website. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 10. Jabref |
OS: Mac, Windows, Linux |
| Jabref will let you edit your references in Latex format, which by the way, you should give it a try instead of a old school Microsoft office word docs whenever you have to hand in a paper. They look more neat specially with numerical data and might get you a higher grade! |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 11. Lyx |
OS: Mac, Windows, Linux |
| Once you know what Latex is and the power it has over your research papers (their looks&quality), you can browse around many different word editors that includes Latex. Lyx is one of them with the advantage of being more user friendly for those not quite verse with Latex formatting while being capable of outputting the most complex & sophisticated equations or diagrams or styles that your paper may need to have. Think about this app whenever you need to hand your thesis or a final paper. |
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How To Use: Video Website |
| 12. Darkroom |
OS: Windows |
| This is another simple software that will let you just write text without any distractions. This time the background is black. your text is white and it’s full screen. Again I would definitely use this whenever I need to get as much words done as possible or take notes from a class without having any distractions whatsoever. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 13. Scribus |
OS: Mac, Windows, Linux |
| Lastly if you are the ultimate writer or need to publish something for a class project in a professional or ready to sell format: brochures, posters, newspapers or books. This is as far as I am aware the only free available software for that . It supports pretty much all formats of text and images plus it’s available in many platforms. A must have if you write a lot. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
Citations
| 14. Zotero |
OS: Mac, Windows, Linux, Web |
| We all know how painful and annoying dealing with citations can be especially after taking days just to finish a paper. This app will organize all the sources you used and give you an easier time when dealing with citation by storing your sources, downloading citations directly from other databases plus you can use the web app to easily collect your sources too. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
Mindmaps
| 15. Vue |
OS: Mac, Windows, Linux |
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If you have a subject or a project to difficult to visualize, understand or grasp this is where a mindmap comes in handy. While there are many web based apps for mindmaps, Tufts University has created a nice program you can install on your desktop for you to create, visualize and share your mind-maps.
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| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 16. MindNode |
OS: Mac |
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For Mac Users, this is a cleaner , more visually appealing, more simple to use mindmap software which has all the features the above options do including the ability to export your work to any device.
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| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
Diagrams
| 17. Visio |
OS: Windows |
| Previously only accessible to those students and professionals with a lot of cash.There is a free Version of Visio for you to create diagrams and flowcharts today. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 18. Lucid Chart |
OS: Web |
| The best web based alternative to Microsoft Visio especially if you are not using a Windows machine, you can create any type of diagram with it as well. You can get a free account and start using with no limits on usage time. |
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How To Use: Video Website |
File Management & Computer Tools
| 28. PDFCreator |
OS: Windows |
| As the name suggests, make PDF Files from your word documents. Useful when you want to hand in a paper as neatly as possible. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 29. PanDoc |
OS: Mac, Windows, Linux |
| A more complete alternative for a document coverter. It will allow you to convert from markdown, reStructuredText, textile, HTML, DocBook, LaTeX, MediaWiki markup, TWiki markup, OPML, Emacs Org-Mode, Txt2Tags, Microsoft Word docx, LibreOffice ODT, EPUB, or Haddock markup to pretty much any other file format including PDF files for printing and be ready to hand in. The installation is quite tricky but the video below should help. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
30. PDF Split & Merge
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OS: Mac, Windows, Linux |
| As the name suggests, you can merge or split a PDF file with it. It’s simple, fast and not any more features other than that. You can use it to break down a pdf book into chapters or sections for you to print or simply organize and read with your computer or put together a presentation/research paper you’ve been working on. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 31. ClipX |
OS: Windows |
| How many times have you lost text or data from using cut/paste several times consecutively?Yeah we all do. But with ClipX you get to save every “Clip” you have done so you won’t lose any data or text from using cut/paste carelessly or too fast. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 32. Snipping Tool |
OS: Windows |
| There will come a few times when you find something really useful and you can’t really save it on your computer. Perhaps a snippet of a book you can’t access, a part of a research paper you can’t save or anything else that may be useful for your classes that doesn’t have a way to save it for later. This tool will let you take screenshots of online websites and be able to give you a full screenshot of that site too. |
| Download |
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| 33. Stuffit Expander |
OS: Mac, Windows |
| I know it can be a pain to have winZip and winRAR installed just to deal with your professor’s compressed files or any useful file you come across. Expand it is the easiest software to use and without costing you anything. You have to have at least one app to expand all the compressed files you come across. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 34. 7zip |
OS: Linux, Windows |
| If you need more than just uncompress your teacher’s or friend’s files for a class, this one can also compress any heavy files you may want to send to others or save to your computer. Unlike winRar and other compressors this one is completely free. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 35. WinDirStat |
OS: Windows |
| This is a great utility to save you some time when you are trying to clean out your computer from all the junk you’ve accumulated during the semester: useful docs, pdfs, games, music and more. If you are running out of capacity it will tell you exactly what’s taking all of your disk space without having to spend hours looking for such files. Mac users can use derlien. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 36. Duplicate Finder |
OS: Linux, Windows |
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How many times have you saved the same doc file with “untitled” or the same title: “homework” “due tomorrow”. Stop wasting time looking for all of these files and see which ones to print or which one to use for your class. As the name suggests this software will let you find all duplicate files so you can finally named them properly or delete them if you no longer need them.
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| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 37. USB Reminder |
OS: Windows |
Yes, it will help you remember to remove your USB Driver from the library or any other computer you are using. I can’t count how many USB Drives I would have now If I had used this app. You can choose different modes to remind you to take it out: silent mode, alarm mode or a countdown mode.
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| Download |
How To Use: Article |
| 38. IceCream Apps |
OS: Mac, Windows |
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IceCream Apps offer you with many more extremely useful software for your studies than the ones just mentioned. It includes a pdf converter, eBook reader and a PDF document spliter too. These are great alternatives to any software mentioned above with better overall presentation ,interface and design. Just go to their site all the tutorials & links are there.
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| Download |
How To Use: Website |
| 39. CloneZilla |
OS: Mac, Windows, Linux |
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This list wouldn’t be complete without a backing up software. Your computer may malfunction, get stolen, stop working or who knows? You don’t want to lose all of the files you have saved up to now from your pass and current classes right? While there are many backing up programs out there, this one is available in pretty much any operating system or platform.
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| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
Task Management & Organization
| 40. ToDoist |
OS: Mac, Windows, Web |
| ToDoist is the more popular task management software among students, unlike others this one has a cleaner and more simple interface. It has tons of features that other data management software may not have have and it’s all free. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 41. Trello |
OS: Web , iOS, Android |
| Another popular project management software. This one is based on the web, no need to download. Includes a Free & Paid Version. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 42. TreeSheet |
OS: Mac, Windows, Linux |
| This is a data organizer only. If you don’t like dealing with spreadsheets but love how they can keep everything neatly and properly structured. TreeSheet will give you all the features from spreadsheets without being one. You can use it for brainstorming, as a calendar, for to-do-lists, brainstorming,organizing your ideas,project management and anything that requires a structure. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 43. TheGuide |
OS:Windows |
| Have you seen those help contents that most software have? Have neatly organized the topics and pages are for you to access and get any info? TheGuide is a software that will let you organize your subject or notes the same way in a tree-like structure with nodes. |
| Download |
How To Use: Website |
| 44. SeoNotes |
OS: Windows |
| My favorite organization & note taking app. This is just like “TheGuide”: you can save your notes in a tree like pattern with nodes/subpages in it. I find this one more colorful , has more features to make your tree view look better(icons,figures)and the editing area is very similar to word-pad or word. In fact you can save your notes into .doc or .html files too. |
| Download |
How To Use: Website |
| 45. ZimWiki |
OS: Windows, Linux |
| You guessed right. This is a wiki software but this time it’s yours. You can create your own wiki of information for your particular major, a research paper or an exam. I use it several times when the topic I need to study is far too broad to fit in a single document. ZimWiki lets me organize everything in neat sections and pages which helps tremendously into gathering more information and understanding the subject better. After all that’s one of the reasons why WikiPedia is so popular right? |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
PassWords
| 46. KeePass |
OS: Mac, Windows |
This software will allow you to manage all of your passwords with a single password. Save your time and stop trying to remember or checking your email over and over for a forgotten password.
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| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 47. Password Safe |
OS: Mac, Windows |
| Another useful tool for those with a hundred of accounts all over the web. This is a software that will keep your username/passwords within a secure,encrypted and ultra-locked list which you can only access with a master password that you know. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
Time Management
| 51. Cold Turkey |
OS: Mac, Windows |
| No this is not a food app. This is for you to stop procrastinating by checking your favorite websites every five seconds while you are trying to finish an essay. Cold turkey will block every site that’s stopping from finishing that assignment before it’s too late to go to bed. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 52. Rachota |
OS: Mac, Windows |
| This is not just a free timer you can download from google. Rachota will let you create different tasks, time them and display them in diagram form. It will give you a report and analysis of how you spend your time with hints on how to improve next time. |
| Download |
How To Use: Website |
| 53. AutoHotKey OS: Windows |
| This is somewhat a bit complicated to master but if you follow the tutorials carefully you’ll learn it fast. With this one you can make key shortcuts of what you want to do with your PC and save tons of time without going to menus and looking for specific files,etc. However, I personally found the macros useful to replace any keys that stopped working in the middle of writing an important paper when I didn’t have the time nor the money to buy another one right away. |
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Health
| 54. Redshift |
OS: Linux, Windows |
| A very useful and well designed app that will adjust your screen’s display settings according to where the sun is. Once installed, when you start using your computer during the morning it will slowly adapt the display to adjust itself (automatically) according to the time of the day or the position of the sun. This will both make using your computer easy on your eyes and help you sleep better at night as well. Installation is not easy on windows and has limitations. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 55. f.lux |
OS: Windows, OSX |
| A great alternative to RedShift, although not as sophisticated, it will adapt your display depending on the time of the day to be both safe for your eyes and allow you to sleep. During the night your screen will adapt according to your indoor lights and during the day it will look just like the Sun |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
Email and Browsers
| 56. Thunderbird |
OS: Mac, Windows |
| Although, it has a lot of different features than just for email. Thunderbird’s email management feature is far more useful for students who just can’t seem to get used to their school’s given email address or have multiple addresses to manage. Download this app and see for yourself all the things you can do to make email management easier and faster. A great alternative to Microsoft Outlook. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 57. Firefox or Chrome |
OS: Mac, Windows |
| Internet explorer can be a pain to use sometimes. If you can’t deal with your system’s default browser, your choice will come down to Fire Fox or Google Chrome. I recommend using Firefox for those with limited computing power and Google Chrome for those dealing with google apps & have more computer resources to deal with the power it requires. |
| Download: FireFox |
Chrome |
| 58. Tor Browser |
OS: Mac, Windows |
| Useful if you want to browse the internet and keep all of your personal data safe: your location, your history, your activities. It will also enable you to access sites that have blocked or banned you for whatever reason. You can use it from your flash drive and run it from any computer. |
| Download |
Music
| 59. Spotify |
OS: Mac, Windows |
| It’s very unlikely you are not aware of spotify yet. For those who’ve been frozen in a cave, you get access to pretty much all the music you want. There’s a free version (with adds) but the premium one isn’t that expensive. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
Photos & Images
| 60. Inkscape |
OS: Mac, Windows |
You don’t have to settle for Microsoft paint if you aren’t an avid Photoshop editor. This is a great alternative to good ol’ paint, a lot more features without going too complicated with Photoshop.
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| 61. Paint.net |
OS: Mac, Windows |
Another great alternative to Photoshop if you don’t want to apply the most complex special effects. This one has a better usability than other alternatives.
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| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 62. Gimp |
OS: Mac, Windows |
| More than just a regular editor and the closest you’ll get to PhotoShop. This is more ideal for students looking forward being professionals with image editing. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 81. AutoDesk |
OS: Mac, Windows |
| If you are a student dealing with 3D modeling and design, there is quite a lot of high quality free software available for you. Check AutoCad’s website for what you can use. Depending on your school’s affiliation to AutoDesk you may be able to get even more free software for your studies without having to pay thousands of dollars. There are tons of tutorials if you look through google or youtube on how to learn each of them. |
| Download |
How To Use:Website |
| 82. Blender |
OS: Mac, Windows |
| The only open source and entirely free 3D Creation suite. You can do pretty much anything related to 3D work: modeling, animation, simulation, rendering,rigging, motion tracking, video editing and game development. If you are a student dealing with animation this is a must have, 3D Designers such as architects and engineers might want to give it a try too. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
| 83. Scratch |
OS: Web |
| This is a web based software where you can use to create animations, games, simulations, visualizations for your projects. experiments, presentations which could be for a math or science project or any class that might benefit from a visual presentation. Just think of making an animated story for your presentation in history class. That would definitely get you an A! The best part is there’s no need for any programming experience, anyone can use it. |
| Website |
How To Use: Video |
| 84. Pencil2D |
OS: Mac, Windows, Linux |
| This is an easy animation and drawing software for hand-drawn animation. It is aimed for all artists no matter their level or expertise. It’s free , simple and a great way to get started if you have to animate an idea you may have. |
| Download |
How To Use: Video Website |
