Bought a Mac? FIRST 10 THINGS TO DO!

okay you've just treated yourself with a shiny new Mac and dropped some serious cash for it so if you want to make the most of that Mac you should tweak the following 10 essential settings first okay first let's dive into the finder because that's probably the place where you'll start every productive work session by customizing it to your needs now you'll save countless hours of browsing opening or sharing files in the future especially the toolbar at the top of the finder window is a goldmine of useful features but only if you add them to do so right click and select customize toolbar from there I'd recommend dragging out any tools you don't need which for me is the added tags option you can also rearrange your icons or add spaces between them to keep it neat and tidy and then you can fill up the toolbar with many additional useful tools I highly recommend the eject disc and airdrop action giving you a one-click access to those features oh and while it's talking about the finder by default it lacks the extreme useful file path feature go to the view menu and select show path bar now this is going to add a little navigation bar down here at the bottom of all the finder windows that you open it's great because not only does it show you where you are but you can also use this to click on the previous folders you've navigated through to reach the one you're currently at okay moving on from customizing the finder to customizing the menu bar giving you access to some essential settings without having to navigate through the control center you can simply drag out any features from the control center and place them into your menu bar I recommend adding the Wi-Fi Bluetooth display sound and focus settings to easily access them with one click you can also reorder your menu bar icons by holding down the command key and dragging and dropping them around if you want to get rid of an icon just place it outside of the menu bar and the dock is just as essential as the menu bar to your Mac so it also deserves a 10 tension when customizing your new setup first things first I remove any apps from the dock that I don't use on a regular basis this makes accessing my most frequently used apps much faster then by right clicking on an empty space in the dock and selecting dock settings you'll unlock a range of different customization options there are a few things here that are just set in stone for me first I like to keep my dog at the bottom of the screen but you can also have it on either side if you prefer I also switch on automatically hide and show the dock to gain some extra screen space however I do switch off show recent applications in dock because otherwise it means that even if I only use an app once in a few weeks it will still stay in my dock again I prefer to keep it clean and clutter free last but not least I set the dock size fairly small but maximize its magnification this makes it easier for me to click on the apps I want to open speaking of which if you use a Macbook or Mac with a magic Trackpad I recommend go going to assist in preferences and then to a trackpad and here you can change the tracking speed which I prefer a little bit faster than the default it makes me navigate my Mac quicker and the travel distance on the trackpad isn't as far the second thing that I would recommend changing in here is enabling the tab to click option because then you don't have to do a full click down on the trackpad you can simply tap it much smoother alright the next trick I would recommend on a new Mac is the fabulous hot Corners feature but with a little twist quick recap hot Corners allow you to start actions when you move your cursor to a corner of your screen to demonstrate if I move my cursor to the bottom right corner my windows move out of the way exposing my desktop you can also use hot Corners to trigger actions like adding a quick note instantly locking your Mac or putting the display to sleep very useful but I used to hate hot corners for a long time because I always triggered them by mistake until I found out about a quick fix if you open system settings navigate to desktop and Dock and scroll right down you'll find the hot Corners option here you can assign actions to your screen corners and before doing so I recommend holding down your shift key this way you now have to move your cursor into the chosen corner and hold down shift to trigger the action and as a side note this also works with the command and option Keys lovely and now that we've beautifully revealed the desktop let's make some tweaks here too to keep it nice and clean I prefer not to clutter my desktop with folders or files but in case I do I like to set some options first simply right click on your desktop and select view options you can adjust the icon and text size to your liking and I prefer mine to be fairly large with a small grid spacing additionally I highly recommend enabling the snap to grid option this keeps your files and folders organized and snaps items you drag onto the desktop into place and you might be familiar with the frustration of opening an audio file and having it automatically open and play in the music app although you never use it that's why I prefer to change the open with defaults on any new Mac right away so that I can always have my files open in the apps I need them to select a file and hit command and I standing for info shift your attention to the open with section and select the app you most often use for that file type for instance I prefer to use QuickTime Player instead of music for my wave fights next make sure you click on change all to apply this setting to all files of that type that's it I recommend doing this for all of your frequently used file types and if you're like me taking loads of screenshots you know the pain of your desktop cluttering up with hundreds of image files to avoid this I like to change my screenshot saving location up front to do so hit command shift and 5 to access the screenshot toolbar click on options and check out the save 2 section at the top here you can choose a new location where your screenshots should be dropped off personally I prefer to save mine in the downloads folder so that I can easily drag them into whatever project I'm working on right from my dock with this simple change your screenshots will no longer pile up on your desktop oh and by the way if you only need a screenshot once right after taking it and don't want to save it at all right click the preview and select save to clipboard or even faster hold down the Ctrl key whilst taking this screenshot you can now paste the image into whatever document you're working on without it being saved to your files great speaking of which there's a simple but game-changing tweak I like to make in Safari when downloading fights like movies pictures or PDFs they will automatically open once downloaded to your computer personally that drives me insane as it interrupts my workflow so let's switch it off head to the safari preferences and click on January uncheck The Box open save files that way when something is downloaded it will just rest in your downloads folder and wait for you to open the file at a time of your choosing and before I forget let me just mention that there are some handy widgets on Mac you can find them by clicking on the date and time in the menu bar which is where you can also set them up simply click on edit widgets and select the ones that are most useful to you if you don't need some of the default ones simply drag and drop them out personally I prefer to have the calendar reminders and weather widgets to get a quick overview of my schedule and the current weather conditions now widgets on Mac are great but they are always hidden in the widget sidebar however some widgets like a music player would be useful to always have at hand which is why I've added this beautiful currently playing music widget to my desktop if you want to know where to get that widget plus discover 9 additional immensely useful apps to make your Mac unique you should watch this video next I will see you there thank you so much for watching and have an amazing day

Channel: MacVince

Views: 131,851

Keywords: mac, macbook, macbook air, macbook pro, mac studio, imac, first things to do macbook, first things to do macbook air m2, first things to do macbook pro, first things to do mac studio, first things to do mac pro, new mac pro, new mac studio, mac tips and tricks, macbook customization, macbook pro setup, macbook pro setup for productivity, first things to do with a new macbook pro, how to setup macbook pro, mac customization, mac customize desktop, macvince, customize mac desktop

Id: SdVq1pz_3P4

Length: 8min 2sec (482 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 16 2023