Label maker software for Mac: what to use in 2026

Which label software is right on a Mac depends mostly on the printer you already own, not on the features list. DYMO and Brother printers come with free designers that are hard to beat on their own hardware. Sheets of Avery labels on an inkjet are well served by Word or Avery's free web tool. The gap is the cheap 4x6 thermal printer from a brand with no Mac software of its own, and that is where a separate app earns its place.

One of the options below is ours. It is listed last, and its limits are stated the same way as everyone else's.

The short version

Pages or Word, with a template

If your labels come on sheets, such as 30 address labels on a Letter page, start here. Word for Mac has a labels tool under Mailings that knows the layout of most Avery product numbers, so you pick the number on the box and get a grid that lines up. It also does mail merge from an Excel file, which is the established way to print a sheet of different addresses.

Pages is free and has label templates, and recent versions can merge from a Numbers spreadsheet or a Contacts group. For labels it is the weaker of the two: it merges one record per page, and people trying it on a sheet template commonly report every label on the page coming out the same. For one design repeated across a sheet it is fine. For a sheet of different names, use Word or Avery's tool.

Where both struggle is a roll. A 4x6 or 2x1 inch thermal label is a page size neither app expects, so you add a custom paper size in the print dialog, set every margin to zero, and check the result against a ruler. It works, and the steps are in our guide to printing 4x6 labels on a Mac, but you repeat some of it for every new size. Neither has a barcode tool either; barcode fonts exist, and they are fiddlier than they look.

Avery Design & Print Online

Free, in the browser, and more capable than people expect. It has templates for Avery's products, imports a spreadsheet for mail merge, generates barcodes and QR codes, and can number labels in sequence. If you buy Avery sheets, this is probably all you need, and it is the honest first recommendation for anyone printing on an inkjet or laser printer.

Its limit is in the name. It is built around Avery's products and sheet layouts, not around a thermal roll on your desk, and it works online rather than as an app on the Mac.

DYMO Connect

DYMO's own designer is free, runs natively on macOS, and handles text, images, barcodes, QR codes and data imported from a spreadsheet. If your printer is a DYMO LabelWriter, use it. The one limit that matters is that it prints to DYMO printers and nothing else. The DYMO LabelWriter guide covers the Mac setup, including the 5XL's label restrictions.

Brother P-touch Editor

The same story for Brother. P-touch Editor is free and does text, images and barcodes for Brother QL and P-touch printers. The Mac version has historically been lighter than the Windows one, and Brother documents its database features mainly for Windows, so if spreadsheet merging is the reason you are choosing it, check the current Mac version does what you need first. Our Brother QL guide covers which QL models take which label widths.

Drawing apps you may already have

Any app that exports a PDF at an exact page size can design a label: Canva, Affinity, Illustrator, even Keynote with a custom slide size. Set the document to the label's dimensions, export, and print at 100% with no scaling. For a one-off design this is often the fastest route. It falls down on anything that changes per label, like numbers, dates or names from a list, and on barcodes, which most of these apps do not generate.

When none of these fits

The awkward case is common: a 4x6 thermal printer from Rollo, MUNBYN, Xprinter or a similar brand, which macOS can print to perfectly well but which comes with no Mac design software of its own. You want labels at the roll's size, in black and white that survives a thermal head, sometimes with a barcode or a number that changes. Word, Pages and Avery are built for sheets; DYMO Connect and P-touch Editor will not print to it.

LabelPrint, and what it does not do

LabelPrint started as a tool for cropping shipping labels, and since version 3.0 it has a Design mode on the Mac and on the iPhone. The overview is on the label maker page; the short version:

• Elements: text, shapes with dashed or dotted strokes and black fill patterns, imported images converted to black and white, freehand drawing, a symbol library (fragile, recycling, food, warnings and more), layers and groups.
• Codes: Code 128, Code 39, EAN-13, and QR codes with an optional logo in the middle. See barcode labels on a Mac for which to choose.
• Changing content: date, time and running-number fields, a numbered series, and one label per row from a CSV file.
• Templates: 48 to start from, including jar, candle, coffee bag, price tag, asset tag, name badge and the usual handling labels.
• Printers: anything the Mac can print to, which covers the common thermal printers and ordinary inkjets and lasers. Built-in sizes include 4x6, 50 × 30 mm and a 50 mm round sticker; custom sizes need Unlimited.

What it does not do, plainly. It has no UPC-A, DataMatrix, PDF417 or GS1-128 barcodes. It designs one label at a time at the label's own size, which suits rolls; for a sheet of 30 different addresses, Word or Avery's tool is the more natural fit. It is a Mac app with an iPhone companion, so there is nothing for Windows, and the iPhone hands its labels to a Mac to print. And barcodes, images and CSV batches need Unlimited, which is a subscription or a one-time purchase, on the pricing section.

Which to pick

• DYMO or Brother printer:the maker's free software, unless you also have a second printer from another brand.
• Avery sheets on an inkjet or laser:Avery Design & Print, or Word if you already pay for it.
• One design, printed once:whatever drawing app you know, exported as a PDF at the label's size.
• A generic thermal roll printer, or labels that change every time: a designer that works in label sizes and prints to any printer, which is the case LabelPrint was built for.