Mac Setup
The procedure I refer to when performing a clean (re)install on an Apple Macintosh
3 minute read
This is the procedure I refer to when performing a clean (re)install on an Apple Macintosh
Table of Contents
Settings Adjustments
System Settings
When the initial setup procedure is done, the first thing I do is to customise the trackpad settings (System Preferences > View > Trackpad
).
In the Point & Click tab:
- Turn on tap to click
- Set click strength to light
- Set tracking speed to the maximum value
- Turn on silent clicking
In the More Gestures tab:
- disable the swipe between pages functionality.
Then I move on to the Dock settings (View > Dock & Menu Bar
):
- Automatically hide & show the Dock
- Do not show recent applications in Dock
Then there are some things that require the command line:
# Don't create .DS_Store files
defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool true
# Disable auto-correct
defaults write -g NSAutomaticSpellingCorrectionEnabled -bool false
Finder Settings
-
Configure Preferences (
Finder > Preferences
):- In Sidebar, show the Home folder and hide the Recents folder
- In Advanced, enable Show all filename extensions
-
Adjust Default View Options (
View > Show View Options
):- Set Sort By to Kind
- Enable Show Item Info
Safari Settings
-
Adjust Preferences (
Terminal > Preferences
):- In Search, switch the default search engine.
- In Advanced, turn on Show full website address and Show Develop menu in menu bar
-
Show Status Bar:
View > Show Status Bar
Command Line Setup
XCode Command Line Tools
Install the XCode Command Line Tools:
xcode-select --install
Homebrew Setup
Install Homebrew:
curl -fsSL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh" | bash
Fonts
Install Fira Code:
brew tap homebrew/cask-fonts
brew install --cask font-fira-code
Go to Terminal > Preferences and change the font to Fira Code Retina 11.
Terminal Shell
Install Fish Shell:
brew install fish
Set as default shell:
echo $(brew --prefix)/bin/fish | sudo tee -a /etc/shells
chsh -s $(brew --prefix)/bin/fish
Since it is a new shell, Homebrew is no longer in $PATH
, so it needs to be re-added:
fish_add_path /opt/homebrew/bin
When opening a new terminal window, fish shows a welcome message. To disable this, run the following:
set -U fish_greeting ""
To make the terminal more interactive, install Starship:
brew install starship
Starship needs to be initialised on shell startup:
echo "starship init fish | source" > ~/.config/fish/config.fish
Node.js Setup
brew install node@16
fish_add_path /opt/homebrew/opt/node@16/bin
Install pnpm:
npm install -g pnpm
Install ni:
pnpm add -g @antfu/ni
GitHub CLI Setup
Install the GitHub CLI:
brew install gh
Login:
gh auth login
Vercel CLI Setup
Install the Vercel CLI:
pnpm add -g vercel
Link project:
vercel link
Fetch environmental variables:
vercel env pull
Setup Workspace
Create a projects/
directory:
mkdir ~/projects
echo "cd projects" >> ~/.config/fish/config.fish
Applications Setup
Install Applications
brew tap homebrew/cask
brew install --cask raycast
brew install --cask visual-studio-code
brew install --cask google-chrome
brew install --cask firefox
brew install --cask discord
Raycast Setup
Disable Spotlight hotkey (System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts > Spotlight
)
Set Raycast shortcut to cmd + space
.
Visual Studio Code Setup
Install global extensions:
Last Updated: 1652521375000