Ask HN: How do you setup your Mac?
I've treated myself to a brand new MacBook Pro with M1 Max and switched from Windows to macOS. Just curious to know if you have tips and tricks and how you are using your Mac.
2 comments
Some stuff I've always setup early through multiple devices:
- Homebrew for installs.
- Bartender for managing apps in my menu bar.
- Flux for managing bluelight filters on my screen.
- Rectangle for managing window position & sizing (great on multiple monitors).
- Cheatsheet to quickly see keyboard shortcuts in any app.
- Google Drive Sync to backup important files on my drive automatically.
- Muzzle to be able to remove notifications during videocalls.
- VLC for never having issues with playing some video/media formats.
- Hazel for doing some automations on my file placement (not sure if free).
- Tripmode for controlling what apps access the internet (i think i paid for this).
- CleanMyMac for cleaning up files and checking for malware etc (paid).
- Gifox for creating and sharing gifs quickly.
- Loom for creating and sharing screen recordings + webcam (great for work).
- iTerm + Oh My Zsh for pimping my terminal.
I heard Alfred is great and wanted to try that soon. Also do spend some time in your system preferences do discover what you can do with your mousepad etc.
Enjoy your new powers :)
- Homebrew for installs.
- Bartender for managing apps in my menu bar.
- Flux for managing bluelight filters on my screen.
- Rectangle for managing window position & sizing (great on multiple monitors).
- Cheatsheet to quickly see keyboard shortcuts in any app.
- Google Drive Sync to backup important files on my drive automatically.
- Muzzle to be able to remove notifications during videocalls.
- VLC for never having issues with playing some video/media formats.
- Hazel for doing some automations on my file placement (not sure if free).
- Tripmode for controlling what apps access the internet (i think i paid for this).
- CleanMyMac for cleaning up files and checking for malware etc (paid).
- Gifox for creating and sharing gifs quickly.
- Loom for creating and sharing screen recordings + webcam (great for work).
- iTerm + Oh My Zsh for pimping my terminal.
I heard Alfred is great and wanted to try that soon. Also do spend some time in your system preferences do discover what you can do with your mousepad etc.
Enjoy your new powers :)
My home folder is a git repo (with a very extensive .gitignore, so I'm only versioning dotfiles, ~/bin, etc), with a branch per machine. Copying over the .git folder to a new machine is step 1. From there, I selectively restore
I have a Brewfile/Brewfile.lock, so I can go from setting up Homebrew to having most of the core tools I need very easily.
I have some scripts in ~/bin for helping with setup using the defaults command.
Other handy tools include chflags, scutil, possibly pmset, etc.
My config setup script looks approximately as follows -- hope you find some of this useful!
https://gist.github.com/MrJoy/20accc3b463e75ce5eecbbd0cff841...
I have a Brewfile/Brewfile.lock, so I can go from setting up Homebrew to having most of the core tools I need very easily.
I have some scripts in ~/bin for helping with setup using the defaults command.
Other handy tools include chflags, scutil, possibly pmset, etc.
My config setup script looks approximately as follows -- hope you find some of this useful!
https://gist.github.com/MrJoy/20accc3b463e75ce5eecbbd0cff841...