Product Designer Setup
  • Introduction
  • Preparation
    • Preparing Your Mac
    • Installing macOS
  • Setup
    • Xcode
    • System Preferences
      • Finder
    • Homebrew
      • Cask
    • Terminal Setups
      • Warp Setup
      • Hyper Setup
      • iTerm2 Setup
        • Zsh
    • Terminal Packages
    • Git
      • Git Ignore
    • Code Editor Setups
      • Visual Studio Code
        • Extensions
        • Preferences
      • Sublime Text
        • Preferences
        • Packages
    • Tech Stack
      • Package Managers
  • Apps + Tools
    • Intro
    • Productivity Tools
    • Design Tools
    • Developer Tools
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On this page
  • General
  • Appearance
  • Accessibility
  • Control Center
  • Siri & Spotlight
  • Desktop & Dock
  • Display
  • Wallpaper
  • Internet Accounts
  • Keyboard
  • Mouse
  • Trackpad

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  1. Setup

System Preferences

PreviousXcodeNextFinder

Last updated 8 months ago

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The first thing you should do is update your OS. To do that, go to: Apple menu () -> System Settings… -> Software Update.

Don’t forget to sign in with your Apple ID to sync your iCloud account.

There are a couple of tweaks you can make to the System Preferences. The settings below are all optional, so consider them as suggestions.

General

  • Airdrop & Handoff

    • Airdrop -> Select Everyone

Appearance

  • Appearance : Dark

Accessibility

  • Motor

    • Pointer Control

      • Check Ignore built-in trackpad when mouse or wireless trackpad is present I primarily use a mouse, so I find it annoying when I accidentally move the mouse pointer while typing on the keyboard.

Control Center

  • Menu Bar Only

    • Spotlight -> Set to Don't Show in Menu Bar

Siri & Spotlight

  • Uncheck Ask Siri

Desktop & Dock

Your dock is probably flooded with all of macOS’s default apps. I usually drag them all to the Trash to make it cleaner. I usually hide the Dock (cmd + option + d) because launching apps with an app launcher like Raycast is faster.

  • Dock

    • Size : Small

    • Position on screen : Left

    • Uncheck Automatically hide and show the Dock

    • Uncheck Show suggested and recent apps in Dock

  • Desktop & Stage Manager

    • Uncheck Show Items -> On Desktop

    • Set Click wallpaper to reveal desktop -> Only in Stage Manager

    • Uncheck Stage Manager

  • Hot Corners

    • Set all to none

Display

  • Disable True Tone

Wallpaper

  • Update your favorite wallpaper.

Internet Accounts

  • Add your Google, Yahoo, or iCloud accounts to sync with the Mail, Calendar, Messages, and other macOS apps.

Keyboard

  • Set Press 🌐︎ key to -> Do Nothing

  • Keyboard Shortcuts

    • Spotlight -> uncheck Show Spotlight search

    • Spotlight -> uncheck Show Finder search window

Fun fact: Spotlight was completely redesigned in OS X 10.10 Yosemite and now resembles Alfred. However, I still prefer using Raycast over Spotlight for various reasons. That being said, we’ll be disabling the Spotlight search keyboard shortcut since we’ll be using Raycast anyway.

Mouse

If you're using a Magic Mouse:

  • Adjust tracking speed to preferred speed

  • Set Secondary click -> Click Right Side

Trackpad

  • Point & Click

    • Enable Tap to click