How I Setup a New Mac 2023 (Step-by-Step Guide)

this video is brought to you by setup since my last how I set up a new Mac video there were quite a few changes around the most obvious two being the release of Macos Ventura and the second the fact that I am now in a possession of a Mac Mini M2 which I'll use for an upcoming Mac mini desk setup and review since I had to set it up ahead of time to play with it why not using the opportunity to share my new process in 2023 so grab a snack and a drink and before we talk about apps let's begin with the fact that with Ventura you are now presented with an updated setup process which prompts you if there's an update prior to even entering the operating system the first thing I did was to let it run while going through the initial process there isn't much to focus on aside from two things I don't use Mac OS file Vault disk encryption because of the overhead that comes with my enormous file size workflow but that might be different for you second I use iCloud for storing and accessing all my work related and personal files so login to iCloud from the get-go is a must for me once I'm in the Mac the first thing that I'll do is I'll go to settings General software update and I'll click on the little I icon inside I will ensure the initial security responses updates are on and while added I'll turn on automatic updates for pretty much everything else so I don't have to think about it twice while in system settings I will do a bit of Maintenance I'll go to control center I will turn off Spotlight in the menu bar because I'll be triggering Spotlight with the keyboard I will turn on hearing to show up in control center which means that if I come over here I have this little ear which I'll be using to turn on background sounds which I use actually a lot okay the next thing that I'll do oh watch allow Mac to unlock with the Apple watch this is something that I do a lot so I'll enable the ultra to unlock the Mac enter my password next I'll go to network and I don't know why but the firewall isn't active which by default it should be active on the Mac so I'll turn this on next I'll go to trackpad and I will enable tap to click because I prefer tapping most of the time than just force pressing on it and all the way at the bottom there is the hot Corners option and on the top left I'll choose to open the launch pad on the bottom left I'll choose to start the screen saver and on the top right I will choose mission control so if I go to the right I have mission control I can see my desktops and full screen apps I go left I see all the apps in the launch pad if I go bottom left I'll be triggering the screen saver which is nice if you want to just step out real quick and lock the Mac by the way the next thing that I'll do in settings is I'll go to accessibility zoom and I will enable use scroll gesture with modify keys to zoom once I do that I can press Ctrl look at this I can zoom in wherever I want to focus on something by the way if you end up enjoying this video subscribe because why not the next thing that I need to do is transfer over everything from my downloads folder from the other Mac which is pretty much the only thing that I care about and I need to transfer over the fonts now we have the drive connected I will go to downloads and just transfer over everything from my other downloads and in the meantime I'll open phone book add fonts to current user and I will locate the files from the drive so now all my fonts are readily available on the Mac Mini alright so the next thing that I'll do is I'll go to iMessage because this is something that I use all the time I have to go to iMessage and enable messages on the cloud and I will disable emails associated with imessage so that I'm not confusing other people that are texting me and already know my phone number and my iMessage email in the meantime I will open notes to trigger the syncing of notes as well because that will take a while as well I will enable notifications from notes because it's important to me alright notes should start populating as well next I'll go to system settings iCloud I will open iCloud drive and then very deep inside there's a option button I'll press that and inside very important to me I will enable syncing for desktop and the documents folder now I don't use documents folder that much but I I do use desktop all the time pretty much everything that is on my desktop is temporary in use or it's needed for a project so I need to be able to access it whether that's from my iPhone or the iPad Pro okay finally time for some maintenance first things first I will clear up the dock and I will remove all the apps that I'm not using or will not be using in fact I will just leave between three to five maybe six or seven tops number of apps that I'll be using all the time the rest I will organize in the launch pad which I'll show you how in a second so let's start cleaning up the dock because most of those apps I won't be using [Music] next I will open the dock settings first I'll choose to minimize Windows within the application icon because I don't need them to be in a separate spot essentially expanding the dock next I will disable show recent applications in the dock because I know exactly what needs to be in the dock and what's open and what's not then I'll remove the downloads folder because I'll set up finder to open the downloads folder by default so no need to have the downloads folder there as well and with that the dock looks a lot cleaner next I'll open the launcher and first I will uninstall apps that I won't be using starting with GarageBand and iMovie and this is pretty much where things end in terms of what I can uninstall now everything else that I won't be using will go into the other or miscellaneous folder now I like to name my folders with capital letters and spaces I think it looks aesthetically pleasing and I'll start dumping things into that miscellaneous folder now keep in mind I will also Place Safari into the miscellaneous folder because when I open the launcher the dock is always visible and Safari is already there in fact I forgot to remove the launcher from the dock okay so Safari goes into miscellaneous [Music] look at this the launcher and the dock are now perfectly clean I will be going over my must-have ABS in a bit but before we get there I wanted to share with you that I recently started playing with crafts despite the fact that both notion and craft are very similar craft is the clear winner when it comes to Aesthetics and ease of use in the world of all-in-one document workspaces for that reason I shifted some of my real planning efforts to craft it's fantastic for Instagram work with the built-in AI assistant I can generate hashtags in a matter of seconds also craft really inspires with its templates and visual interface which is great for both clients and partners oh and tabs I can finally move back and forth between multiple documents all while keeping one beautifully organized app opened craft is available on setup a platform with a plethora of Premium productivity Focus apps and tools starting from just 9.99 a month which is what the business version of craft costs you'll get all access passed to over 230 Q rated Mac and iOS apps get 7 day free trial for craft and set up using the link in the description below I will customize the desktop and then binder right click on the desktop Show view options from here I will say that the labels on the desktop will be on the right I will enable show item info because sometimes this is useful if I'm glancing at a file real quick and then I will open finder and look at this mess oh my god let's start with the sidebar I'll go to finder settings I will disable external disks on the desktop because I can easily see them in the sidebar same goes to CDs and DVDs and things that are mounted by default when I open the finder window I don't want to see reasons I want to see downloads for which I need to click on other and select downloads I'll go to the sidebar and I will remove reasons I don't use that at all I will disable tags because I don't use Stacks either and I'm not going to enable music music or movies or pictures because I don't use that either so I'll leave it like this for now then I'll switch to Advanced and then I'll change when performing a search I want to search the current folder this is 99 of the time then I will reorganize the sidebar and I'll grab the desktop which is now part of iCloud and I'll move it to my favorites and I'll grab downloads and move that below the desktop next up customize toolbar the only thing that I'll leave is the share button and the search the final looks a lot cleaner then I'll go to view and I'll show preview because I want to be able to Glass the photos which is one less thing to have to press I can just glance at whatever I'm looking at then again I'll go to view show path bar here at the bottom and then I'll go to view show status bar so while we are in finder finally we will go and we will use a list so whenever I open the folder like desktop for example I'll go to view I'm always working in list view okay the next thing that I'll do in finder is I'll find a music file like an MP3 I will choose get info and from here as you can see the default app to open audio files like MP3 is Apple music and I don't want that I want to use QuickTime for opening music files or any sorts of like effects and stuff that I'll use for videos or other projects I don't want anything to end up in the music app I'll choose open with and instead of music I will choose QuickTime Player and while we are at the topic of annoying thing I will open Safari I'll go to Safari settings and I will uncheck open save files after downloading I don't want Safari to automatically open anything that I'm downloading that should be my choice only so I'm turning this off the next thing that I'll do in Safari is go to Advanced and I will turn on the developer menu in the menu bar because I use that all the time by this time iCloud should have downloaded some of the files that I most often use so I will go to wallpapers and choose some of my own wallpapers to spice up the way the Mac Mini looks so I'll go to stairs and I will choose number one as my wallpaper because this is one of my personal favorites and voila things already look much nicer now let's talk apps although I use keychain for managing my passwords I also use one password since it's a cross-platform app that I can use on PC and Android as I mentioned earlier I use notion for managing this YouTube channel so that's one app that I installed very early on I use a little app called amphetamine that keeps my Mac awake not allowing it to fall asleep or trigger the screen saver it's an app that I use every time I do recording like this or I simply want to leave the Mac running for my associate to work on next to work at ease I rely on copy clip as my clipboard manager if you don't use a clipboard manager stop right now and find one that works for you it's a must for anyone whenever I need to do a conversion or a calculation I open numi numi is the inline calculator converter app that comes in very handy no matter the use case I use image to icon to create Mac icons that I can use to customize some of my folders it's very simple to use and you just have to drop your desired folder image into it and it generates the appropriate file to replace the file find their folder with photo bulk is a batch image processing app it is useful whenever I want to optimize the file size of a bunch of images it allows me to play with dimensions and the file extensions as well rectangle is an app that I use to snap Windows all over the desktop similar to what Windows is able to do out of the box I also use an app called monitor control that helps me adjust the volume and brightness of external displays although it doesn't work with every single monitor out there the majority of the time it works great where in some cases it even allows you to use the keyboard to manage the brightness or volume without having to play with the monitor's physical buttons next is Downy and permute Downey is what I use to download videos from websites like YouTube permute is what I use to convert and Export video files into various video formats short menu is what I use to shorten my URLs when necessary it lives in a menu bar and it's ready to shorten anything that's copied in the clipboard full Suite FM is my favorite music player recently and it's an app I talk more about in my latest favorite Mac apps video which I'll link at the end of this one speediness is a simple app that I can refer to whenever I want to speed test my internet connection and any Droid is what I recently switched to when I want to access my files on my Samsung Galaxy s23 Ultra in terms of mundane apps I use Microsoft Office in combination with Apple's own Suite of pages numbers and keynote as well as Google Chrome for managing this YouTube channel and recently Edge as it's a browser with a bunch of new features like AI integration that is soon to arrive in terms of productivity apps I recently switched to tiktik as my calendar slash task app as I'm trying to live between IOS and Android I find tiktik to be a great app for task management as it works great on all platforms and it has Nifty features like voice to task for email I use hey which is not just an email app but an entire service and another service that I rely on for moving back and forth video assets is sweet transfer I often have to grab website screenshots and for that I use an old app called page screenshot for Safar It's actually an extension that allows you to grab full or partial screenshots of anything on the web in terms of creative apps Color Picker is a little menu helper that allows me to sample any color I see on the desktop that I can later on refer to in my edits Affinity photo and Affinity designer are my go-to image editing and vector graphics tools that I absolutely love Lightroom is what I use for photo manipulation for example most of my Instagram photos have been lightroomed so feel free to check it out if I really need to create something that stands out I sometimes create stacked photos with the help of Helicon Focus it's a simple to use and reliable photo stacking app the mock view app is something I talked recently and I absolutely love it it's made by a creator for creators and it allows me to grab render images of Apple devices for various purposes an example will be my recent widget that I released on my website with the help of mock View and of course let's give credit to Final Cut Pro which helped me create this video and all other videos on this channel if you enjoyed this video and you're new to Mac be sure to check out my beginner's guide video here as well as my latest favorite apps video here like And subscribe to the channel as well as my newsletter and as always it's been an absolute pleasure this is the overnight [Music]

Channel: ThisIsE

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Id: -SiMIfryGJk

Length: 15min 22sec (922 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 21 2023