First 12 Things I Do to Setup a MacBook: Apps, Settings & Tips

I've been using Apple computers for about 20 years now and there's a few things I do every time I set up a Mac you might notice that I mean this is not this is not a new Mac not a new here but this could be helpful to you whether you got a new computer or you just want to optimize the one you're using now when you set up your computer for the first time something it's on by default that I think is a terrible idea is the automatic iCloud syncing of your documents and especially your desktop folder let's turn that off if you're using the latest version of Mac OS I'm in Catalina you're gonna find that in Apple ID iCloud Drive click options and right here you're gonna turn off a desktop and documents folder the reason I do this is Mac OS tries to be intelligent about how it manages your files and that means that sometimes a big file on your desktop isn't actually on your desktop it's in the cloud so if you're not on the internet you can't access it and actually I just demonstrated this perfectly as I switched it on and off it went and moved all my files to iCloud for file syncing I use Dropbox doesn't really matter what you use as long as you are in control of where your files are so let's assume you're setting up a new computer one of the first things you should do is check for software updates even if you bought it brand new from the Apple Store it may not be completely up-to-date so just check before you start arranging everything next let's organize our dock one thing I appreciate from apples they bundle in some very powerful software without having bloatware but if you don't use pieces off for more than at least like once a week just remove it the less stuff in the dock the better if you removed an app that you really want just press command spacebar start searching for it and it'll always be there spotlight is your friend I realize a lot of people have strong opinions about the placement of the dock but if you're on a laptop screen the bottom is the wrong place it takes up way too much real estate I appreciate my monitor space too much so I keep mine on the right the only thing really matters whether you put it on the right or the left is if you have external displays make sure that you can always access your dock easily and I also turn hiding on if I don't have an external display you can quickly press command option D to hide and show the dock at any time also if you click and drag on this little line you can change the size of it I like to keep it small ish a quick one I use to keep my desktop organized is stack so you can see if I click this there's actually a lot more on my desktop than you may have thought at first so to do that you just go to view use stacks and oh man I'm not as organized as I thought so let's just use stacks again and it combines all the similar files on your desktop together so you don't have to organize them manually another thing I always do in the finer is I go to view and show path bar and also show status bar and these are right below your standard finder windows they both show you exactly where a file is located you can see the path so when you're deep inside a folder you can always track it back and see where it is and a status bar is an old-school part of Mac OS let's you see how much space is available on your hard drive and how many items you have selected in the current folder a detail that's really important to me and you may not even have noticed is that by default scroll bars are hidden until you start scrolling I think this is a usability mistake because you don't have a sense of how far down you are in a window so I go to general in the System Preferences show scroll bars and always and now you can visually get a representation of how many items are in a window by the size of the scroll bar this one's personal but I couldn't live without tap to click I always have that on cuz a lot of the time I don't want to press my finger down all the way if you've got an Apple watch going to security and privacy and let your Apple watch unlock your computer it's just as safe as a password or fingerprint but way more convenient by default your battery indicator doesn't show percentage which I like to have so I turn on show percentage for any kind of file on your computer like an image video audio the operating system is going to try to find a default app to open it with but it's usually wrong bless it for trying but I like my audio files to open in audition so I go to get info and down here there's an open with preference and you can choose whatever you want to open it with maybe I wanted a QuickTime and I could collect change all and now every file that is a dot WAV file is going to open up in QuickTime but I like my ways to open auditions so I'll click Change all again and images are specific to their file types so if I have a raw file I could have that open up in capture one and I get up my PSD is open in Photoshop one of the big reasons I prefer max over pcs is that they generally don't need a lot of maintenance but sometimes they can still get kind of clogged up and today's sponsor can help you out it's CleanMyMac X now available in the App Store whether you've got big files hiding on your drive that are taking up too much space or maybe you visited a site that installed some malware on your computer either way CleanMyMac X is there to help in 12 years CleanMyMac X is transformed from a simple Mac cleaning app to a powerful all-in-one solution loved by thousands of users recently it was released in the Mac App Store which is further proof that the app is legitimate and safe for your Mac bar and if you're concerned at all about automatic optimization changing things you don't want it to don't worry you have full control over what CleanMyMac is doing it scans deep into your files and lets you know about the tons of hidden junk that you can safely remove it doesn't touch any of your essential files while it scans your computer for any sort of adware or malware or anything else that shouldn't be running in the background I also got this helpful space lens feature which basically gives you an overview of where things are on your hard drive right now my hard drive is twofold and with a little bit of clicking around I can track down what are the giant folders that I could try to thin down and delete oh I got a lot of pictures on here I can move those to an external drive some of these movies and other projects I just need to backup externally now's the time to go check it out like I said it's in the App Store so if you click on the link in the description below they'll know you came from this video and you'll have it available on any computer that uses that Apple ID once again thanks to CleanMyMac X they've been keeping my computer safe for many years now here's an exercise I'm glad I did a while ago don't rely on videos like this to tell you how to set up your computer make a list of your own these are all the apps and the settings that I change every time I set up a new Mac because it's hard to remember them and if you're wondering should I set up a Mac is a new computer or import everything from my previous computer it's not an easy decision I've had issues both ways but these days I generally set up each Mac as a completely new computer file migration works well for a lot of people a lot of the time but I have had issues with it and it's just nice to have a totally clean slate where you know what's going on the very first things I install just to get things going are a password manager so in my case I've been using one password a lot lately although LastPass works I should do a head-to-head comparison someday Dropbox which is the backbone of how we pass files around I'd also recommend installing Chrome not because it should be a primary browser but it is worth having because there's some programs that just work better in it for example YouTube but honestly Safari is way more battery efficient chrome is a ram hog and will slow down your whole machine and then I install set app which is kind of like installing dozens of other apps because there's a lot of stuff I just using here all the time and I just pay a subscription to have access to them so a big one is bartender and actually bartenders running all the time if you look up here in my menu bar you'll notice there's not a lot of stuff going on I'm actually gonna go into my preferences and hide even more of it for example my screen recorder we don't need to see that right now if I say hide then it's only visible when I click these three dots honestly my computer feels like a mess if I don't have a bartender installed another favorite is screens this allows me to access my computer from other computers so especially the iMac here at the studio I can reach it from my laptop and it's connected to other drives and stuff like that now in terms of software we run a photo and video production company so a lot of this is creative stuff I'm just gonna go through my dock real quick here's what I have installed for a photography Photoshop is right near the top along with Lightroom and also capture one I'm kind of moving back and forth between the two a lot of things drive me crazy about Lightroom lately for editing my podcast I use Adobe Audition and I've actually been thinking about trying logic because there's a 90 day free trial right now a lot of apps have free trials these days so it's a good time to experiment a little tool that helps a lot with podcast is forecast and by the way go to Stallman podcast.com and subscribe today because it's a good show I talk to other youtubers and podcasters about Apple and creative production video photo all that stuff DaVinci Resolve I specifically use this to grade my raw footage so this is before and this is after and Brazil is free by the way so go experiment with it Final Cut Pro that's where I do all of my editing and oh I forgot to remove mail I don't actually use the mail app I could go on and on but those are the most important things I'd love to know what are the first things you change in any of your preferences when you setup a Mac what did I forget put that in the comments below click the link in the description because CleanMyMac is a fantastic sponsor and I'll see you guys the next video

Channel: Tyler Stalman

Views: 2,508,879

Keywords: Tyler Stalman, cleanmymac x, setting up a MacBook, MacBook, settings, Mac tips, apple, macOS, best apps, customize

Id: cIJJ6FaqKVM

Length: 8min 36sec (516 seconds)

Published: Sat May 09 2020