It's been about a year since I published my laptop setup guide. Since then, I've tweaked a few more settings and provisioned a few more laptops.

How I set up a new MacBook

How I set up a fresh laptop.

Andrew LiuAndrew Liu

Native Settings

Everything here is modified within the System Settings app.

• Change your laptop's hostname to something unique. A templated name like yourname-mbp is bound to have namespace collisions.
• Within the Keyboard section...
  • Customize the modifier keys (Keyboard Shortcuts > Modifier Keys). I remap the caps lock key to escape.
  • Go to Text Replacements... and remove all entries.
• Within the Control Center, set Automatically hide and show the menu bar to Never.
• Within the Lock Screen section, set Require password after sceen saver begins or display is turned off to Immediately. This locks the laptop immediately if the lid closes.
• Within the Appearance section...
  • Set Show scroll bars to Always .
  • Set Click on the scroll bar to to Jump to the spot that's clicked.
• Within the Desktop & Dock settings, set windows to minimize using the scale effect.
• Customize the hot corners. Remove the quick note from the bottom right, and add the notification center to the top right. That way, if you're not using a track pack, you can still easily pull up notifications.

Finder

There are a bunch of finder settings. I loosely follow the steps outlined in this video. Just give it a watch and follow along.

For reference, this is what my finder window looks like after it's been set up. You can compare to mine as reference.

Apps

Most of the apps in the previous blog post have stayed the same. However, I have added some extras. I personally pay for all of them, but they have free versions that work great too.

• Dropzone 4 to have a place on the menu bar to send items or do quick actions.
• Coconut Battery to monitor battery health.
• AlDente to regulate battery charge.
• UnnaturalScrollWheels to have proper trackpad and mouse scrolling at the same time.
• Bartender 5 to organize the menu bar.

And that's it. You now have a perfectly functional MacBook!