Mac Setup
The procedure I refer to when performing a clean (re)install on an Apple Macintosh
4-5 minute read
This is the procedure I refer to when performing a clean (re)install on an Apple Macintosh, recently updated for MacOS Ventura.
Table of Contents
Settings Adjustments
System Settings
Once the initial setup procedure is done, customise the trackpad settings (System Settings > 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
Now move on to the Dock settings (View > Desktop & Dock
):
- Automatically hide & show the Dock
- Do not show recent applications in Dock
- In Hot Corners, deactivate all shortcuts.
Finder Settings
-
Configure Settings (
Finder > Settings
):- 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 Settings (
Safari > Settings
):- 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
System Settings
# Don't create .DS_Store files
defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool true
# Disable auto-correct
defaults write -g NSAutomaticSpellingCorrectionEnabled -bool false
XCode Command Line Tools
-
Install the XCode Command Line Tools:
xcode-select --install
Homebrew Setup
-
Install Homebrew
sudo curl -fsSL "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh" | bash
Terminal Shell
-
Install Fish Shell:
/opt/homebrew/bin/brew install fish
-
Set Fish as default shell:
echo /opt/homebrew/bin/fish | sudo tee -a /etc/shells chsh -s /opt/homebrew/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 -g 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
Fonts
-
Open the Homebrew Cask Fonts tap
brew tap homebrew/cask-fonts
-
Install Fira Code
brew install --cask font-fira-code
Go to Terminal > Settings and change the font to Fira Code.
Git
-
Change Git credentials:
git config --global --edit
GitHub CLI
-
Install the GitHub CLI
brew install gh
-
Login to the GitHub CLI
gh auth login
Node.js
-
Install Node.js:
brew install node@16
-
Configure Node for Fish
fish_add_path /opt/homebrew/opt/node@16/bin
-
Install pnpm:
brew install pnpm
-
Run the automatic setup script:
pnpm setup
-
Install ni:
pnpm add -g @antfu/ni
Setup Workspace
-
Create a
projects/
directorymkdir ~/projects
-
Set the directory as the starting point when opening a new shell
echo "cd ~/projects" >> ~/.config/fish/config.fish
Vercel CLI
-
Install the Vercel CLI
pnpm add -g vercel
-
Link current project
vercel link
-
Fetch environmental variables
vercel pull
Applications Setup
brew tap homebrew/cask
Raycast
-
Install Raycast
brew install --cask raycast
-
Open Raycast
-
Disable Spotlight hotkey (
System Settings > View > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Spotlight > Show Spotlight search
) -
Set Raycast shortcut to
cmd + space
. -
In Raycast, go to Store and install the following extensions:
- Brew
- Kill Process
- Lorem Ipsum
- Speedtest
Visual Studio Code
-
Install Visual Studio Code
brew install --cask visual-studio-code
-
Install global extensions:
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