Optional: Reinstall macOS

Reinstall macOS using this guide: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchlp1599/mac

This includes a lot of free apps I use on my Mac. I have a comprehensive list of these in Github and Google Sheets.

Homebrew has a built in bundle feature which allows you to automate the installation of multiple packages, both from brew, and also from the Mac App Store using mas. I used to separate these out, but this is a much simpler process.

This uses a Brewfile which is a text file which lists all the packages which you want to install. A Brewfile can have the following types of line: tap - A Homebrew tap to add brew - A Homebrew formula to install cask - A Homebrew cask to install mas - A Mac App Store ID to install vscode - A Visual Studio Code extension to install whalebrew - Docker images ditributed using the whalebrew package manager

I currently do not use whalebrew. I also like to manually install my vscode extensions, so I do not include these in my Brewfile.

It is important to note that to use the mas command, you need to have installed the mas package, so you need to include this in your Brewfile above any mas lines.

A very basic Brewfile might look like this:

tap 'homebrew/cask'
brew 'mas'
mas "Xcode", id: 497799835

In this example, the homebrew/cask tap is added, the mas package is installed, and the Xcode app is installed from the Mac App Store.

If you have a current installation of Homebrew on an existing Mac that you want to replicate on another Mac, you can create a Brewfile by running the following command:

brew bundle dump

You can edit this Brewfile using TextEdit.

I have also included my own Brewfile in this repo, which you can use to install all the packages I use.

Install Homebrew using the following command:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Place the Brewfile (which you downloaded from here, or created yourself) in your Home directory — you can get here in Finder by selecting Go > Go to Folder... (or pressing ⌘ + ⇧ + G) and typing ~/. Terminal should launch here by default.

Open Terminal and run the following command:

brew bundle install

(If you have your Brewfile in a different location, you can specify this by running brew bundle install /path/to/Brewfile)

I like my packages to update automatically, so I use the Homebrew Autoupdate package which just uses the built-in autoupdate mechanism within Homebrew. It is in my Brewfile, but if you want to install it yourself, you need to use:

brew tap domt4/autoupdate

I then configure it using the options:

brew autoupdate start 43200 --upgrade --cleanup --immediate --sudo

This is the example from the Autoupdate Github which:

Upgrade[s] all your casks and formulae every 12 hours and on every system boot.

If a sudo password is required for an upgrade, a GUI to enter your password will be displayed. Also, it will clean up every old version and left-over files.

Casks that have built-in auto-updates enabled by default will not be upgraded.

If you have set a brew autoupdate and want to change it, you first have to run:

brew autoupdate delete

Then run another brew autoupdate start command with your new parameters.

Alternative to using a Brewfile

Previously instead of a Brewfile, I would install my packages using two separate files, separating out the Homebrew packages from those from the Mac App Store. This resulted in two files:

• packages.txt - This file lists all the packages I want installed from Homebrew
• mas-apps.txt - This file lists all the packages I want installed from the Mac App Store (using the mas package)

You can find examples of these files in the old-package-method folder of this repo. If you wish to use them, download them to your Downloads folder and:

1. cd to the Downloads folder in Terminal using:

cd Downloads/

2. Install all the packages recursively in packages.txt by running the command:

brew install $(grep -v '^--cask' packages.txt) && brew install --cask $(grep '^--cask' packages.txt | sed 's/^--cask //')

brew install can install multiple packages at once by just queueing them up, one after another (e.g. brew install gh bitwarden-cli), however has to install cask and non-cask packages separately. The above command separates this into two commands.

3. Now use mas to install previously purchased/installed apps from the Mac App Store using the following command:

grep -v '^\s*#' mas-apps.txt | awk '{print $1}' | xargs -n 1 mas install

These cannot be downloaded using mas. You have to download these manually. Currently the two I have installed are:

1.4.1 - The other apps I install outside of these two places are:

1.4.2 - TheBoringNotch is not yet signed by Apple, so when first launched, it will show a popup saying it is untrusted. Click Okay, then on your Mac go to Settings > Privacy & Security and scroll until you see a button saying Open Anyway.

1.5.1 - Adobe: brew will have installed Creative Cloud but it will not have installed the apps. Sign in and download the apps. 1.5.2 - Xcode: Xcode needs to install additional bits. Launch it and download the relevant environments.

Install all the fonts from the google/fonts repository by doing the following:

cd ~/Library/Fonts/

git clone https://github.com/google/fonts.git google-fonts

Updating fonts cd ~/Library/Fonts/google-fonts/ git pull

Removing fonts rm -rf ~/Library/Fonts/google-fonts/ Source: How to Install ALL Google Fonts on macOS

I usually need to use some of Apple’s fonts (like San Francisco), so I download them from Apple here.

There is no way to install all of these at once. Unfortunately you have to go and select 'Download' on each here.

I turn on Automatically hide and show the Dock and set the size and magnification as shown here:

In Desktop & Stage Manager I also set Click wallpaper to reveal desktop to Only in Stage Manager and turn off Stage Manager

I turn on Hold ⌥ key while dragging windows to tile and turn off Tiled windows have margins

I turn on Group windows by application

I change the gesture for Mission Control to Swipe Up with Three Fingers I turn on the gesture for App Exposé - Swipe Down with Three Fingers

Since I use Shottr for screenshots, I change the Copy default to add an ⌥ modifier e.g. ⇧ + ⌘ + 3 -> ⌥ + ⇧ + ⌘ + 3 Also since I use Raycast instead of Spotlight, I change from ⌘ + Space to ⌥ + Space

I ensure that Bluetooth is set to Show in Menu Bar — it doesn’t always show up here. I also change Sound to Always Show in Menu Bar .

Finder’s sidebar is never used enough imo, so I open Finder, do ⌘ + , to open Preferences and:

• In General, ensure Sync Desktop & Documents folders is checked since I want my Desktop and Documents to be synced via iCloud
• In Sidebar select everything (apart from On My Mac)

• I drag Documents and Desktop from the iCloud section in the Sidebar up to the Favourites section above (this just makes much more sense for me)
• I turn on the Path Bar by going to View > Show Path Bar
• In my Downloads folder I set this up for how it best works for me:
  • I always want it to be sorted by Date Last Added, so I set this for both View > As Icons and View > As List
  • In List view I also add Date Modified as this can sometimes be useful

When you’re in other apps, the selection interface can be hard to use, especially with your Downloads folder which can often be shown in the Columns view. In this view, it sorts alphabetically and you can’t seem to find blank space to right click and sort by Date Last Added. To rectify this, change it to Icons, and you’ll be able to find space in-between documents to right click.

I am not sure why, but Safari likes to default to open with a new window every time you start it up. I always change it to: Safari opens with: All windows from last session

We already talked about the Dock settings before, but I like to separate out the items on my Dock using spacers. There are two types of spacer, small and regular. Regular is the same size as a full app, whereas small is half the width. I use small spacers.

To add these, you have to run the corresponding command in Terminal. Sometimes this doesn’t work, so re-run it until it adds one. Once one is added, drag and position it before adding another — the success rate of adding another seems to go up if you drag the one you just added away.

The commands to add spacers are as follows:

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="small-spacer-tile";}'; killall Dock

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}'; killall Dock

I prefer Raycast to Spotlight — it has many more functions and I can customise it more. I am by no means a power user, but I have adjusted it so that it works for me.

Raycast has a Store which allows you to install Extensions which can run functions on your Mac, both system and app-specific. When I first started using Raycast, I ended up adding loads and loads of extensions, and both forgetting about functions, and also being overwhelmed when I searched for a function. There a few ways I have combatted this:

1. I only install Extensions I will actually use — This seems simple, but I am definitely an optimistic downloader. I have tamed this somewhat. If I am browsing the Store, I carefully check my own workflow to identify if I think an extension would actually make sense (do I use this function commonly? Would I actually think to use Raycast rather than a web app?).
2. I only enable the parts of the Extensions that I want - This is something I didn’t really think about properly until recently, but this actually made my menus much less overwhelming. In the Extensions tab, I go through and expand each Extension and uncheck all the Commands which duplicate other functionality, or I just don’t want.
3. I add Aliases - See the below section, I think these are great!

Below I have written out the Extensions I have installed, and the Commands I have enabled for each of them, often slimmed down significantly (if you search for them in the Store, lots have a lot more than the number I have enabled!). Any spaces have been shown as underscores (_).

Adding Aliases actually was actually a game-changer. These allow you to assign characters to Extension (which includes each app), meaning when you type these, Raycast suggests this first. This even works if you haven’t typed the whole of the Alias, suggesting it above the default search.I now have double or triple letter Aliases set so I can quickly launch them.

These are also good for when something has been renamed, or if you can’t remember the name of something but can remember its function (or want to group applications by function). For example I have Terminal set to term and Warp set to term2, and X set to twi.

I have the Extensions Aliases above, but for apps specifically I have:

Quicklinks allow you to search quickly from Raycast and go straight to your browser (or even certain apps if they support it). Icons are usually automatically populated by Raycast which is great. You can also assign Aliases to these. Currently I have:

You can add links directly to folders on your Mac. To do this:

1. Find the folder you want in Finder
2. Hold down ⌥ and click Edit then select Copy ”Folder Name” as Pathname (or use the keyboard shortcut ⌥ + ⌘ + C)
3. You will now have a pathname. You just need to remove /Users/youruser and replace this with ~/ e.g. for the Music folder it goes from /Users/youruser/Music to ~/Music
4. Now just use this as your link in Raycast and name accordingly!

To tidy up my menu bar I use Ice, where I place things is as follows: 

I use Shottr instead of macOS’s built in screenshot utility. I prefer that it allows you to mark up, edit, crop, measure, and more!

It also has a super useful OCR feature which allows you to select an area on the screen and extract the text from it.

Since I want it to replace the default screenshots in macOS, I set it up to:

Command	Shortcut
Fullscreen screenshot	⇧ + ⌘ + 3
Area screenshot	⇧ + ⌘ + 4
Instant Text/QR Recognition	⇧ + ⌘ + 2

I use Velja to automate switching to Arc for Google apps. They are as folllows:

I prefer typing a : and searching to insert emoji. Rocket does this really well. I hide the Menu Bar icon using Ice.

DockDoor shows you a preview of the windows you have open when you hover over them in the Dock.

I prefer it to be clean, quick and launch on login, so I change: In General:

• I check Launch DockDoor at login
• Preview Window Open Delay > 0
• Window Size > Small

In Appearance:

• Traffic Light Buttons Visibility > Never visible

In Window Switcher:

• I uncheck Enable Window Switcher

Boring Notch is a great app and has loads of functionality to make your notch more useful on MacBooks. They added the feature I really wanted — being able to assign this to only your MacBook screen when connected to external monitors.

I think everything is fine as default, though of course I enable Launch at login.

These are other utilities I use that aren’t necessarily tied to system functions, but things I install, and set to open on login (they are automatically downloaded in the packages.txt and mas-apps.txt).

I like to use AutoSwitch as secondary menu to quickly access some advanced settings.

In General I set:

• Launch: Launch at login to On
• Promotion: Show More Apps to Off

In Customisation I turn on:

• Hide Desktop Icons
• Autohide Dock
• Autohide Menu Bar
• Xcode Derived Data
• Show Hidden Files
• Empty Clipboard
• Show User Library Folder
• Show Extension Name
• Low Power Mode
• Show Finder Path Bar
• Screen Test & Clean
• True Tone
• Key Light
• In here I also turn off Hide Menu Bar Icons

I use MeetingBar only for a single function, it shows a fullscreen notification when a meeting starts, meaning I can’t ignore it.

I therefore check Launch after login and Show a fullscreen notification when event starts.

I turn off basically everything else and hide it in my menu bar using Ice.

This ensures you’re always streaming the best quality when connected to AirPods or other Bluetooth headphones. In the Menu Bar, click the icon to see its settings. I like to have it in the hidden menu in Ice with Show Sample Rate selected so I can keep an eye on it.

This is a great autocomplete for Terminal, but by default it shares a lot of data with Amazon. Log in and then select the icon in the Menu Bar > Settings. Then under Settings > Preferences > Advanced, turn off Share Amazon Q content with AWS and Telemetry.

I don’t generally block ads, but I prefer not to be tracked, and don’t like the popups on websites, including cookie notices. I therefore turn on:

• Privacy, with AdGuard Tracking Protection filter and Peter Lowe's Blocklist
• Annoyances, with AdGuard Annoyances filter

I also turn off Show AdGuard for Safari in the menu bar

This is much better than the Last.fm app, for scrobbling. You just need to log in and grant access to your play history.

Also I disable the widget (Widget, uncheck Show widget).

This is a good app to have just so you can see all the details of any app on your system in one place.

This is a Quick Look Extension to previewing source files using Quick Look. Another great one to have.

Loads of apps like to have Menu Bar items, and mine’s already quite cluttered, even with Ice. I therefore go into each of these apps and turn them off:

• Notion
• ChatGPT
• Figma