Set Up a New Mac (May 2025 Edition)

Previously: July 2019, July 2022, August 2023

• Upgrade to latest MacOS
• Restore from Blackblaze backup: u directory, dotfiles, .config dir, .cursor dir, .ssh dir, .vim dir, any other dot dirs that look useful, ~/Library/Application Support/Alfred
• Set perms on .ssh

  $ cd ~ && chmod 600 ~/.ssh/* && chmod 700 ~/.ssh && chmod 644 ~/.ssh/*.pub
  

• Hide Desktop icons

  $ defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop false
  $ killall Finder
  

• Show hidden files in Finder with Cmd-Shift-.
• 1Password
• Dock: remove everything, hiding on, magnification on
• Alfred (and give it Accessibility access, add license key)
• System Settings, Mouse, set Trackpad speed to max and enable right-click
• Sublime Text 4 (add license key, set "trim_trailing_white_space_on_save": "all" in sublime prefs, install Package Control, install Nord Theme via Package Control)
• subl commandline sublime.

  $ ln -s "/Applications/Sublime Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" ~/u/bin/subl

• sublime git-ignorer. (1) add Package Control repo https://github.com/apc999/sublime-text-gitignore (2)
  install package sublime-text-gitignore (3) use menu item : File->Exclude Git-ignored (4) Give this a keyboard shortcut in Sublime, Preferences, Key Bindings with { "keys": ["super+shift+i"], "command": "exclude_ignored" }
• Keyboard shortcut to toggle word wrap in Sublime Text. Preferences, Key Bindings { "keys": ["super+shift+w"], "command": "toggle_setting", "args": { "setting": "word_wrap" } }
• Install FiraCode and add it to Sublime Text prefs with "font_face": "Fira Code".
• Nord theme for Terminal and make default in preferences.
• Polar theme for terminal when ssh’ing to remotes
• For both Nord and Polar themes: “Use Option as Meta Key” in Terminal to make left Alt work as Esc. And Terminal, Settings, Advanced, un-check “Audible bell” and “Only when sound is muted”
• System Preferences, Sound, turn “Alert volume” all the way down
• Use Ctrl-f7 to enable keyboard navigation of dialogs
• Homebrew. (Installs OSX commandline tools)
• Discord
• Change all .txt to open with Sublime Text
• WhatsApp
• Chrome. Sign in to Chrome to get extensions, then tell it you really do want uBlock Origin via “Keep for Now” under Extensions in Settings. Uninstall Chrome if they’ve finally locked it down entirely
• Firefox. Sign in to sync extensions. Set as default browser
• Skitch
• Backblaze
• Parallels Desktop + Windows + MTGO
• Disable Ask Siri in System Preferences, Siri
• Turn on “tap to click” in System Preferences, Trackpad
• Disable long-press (it’s annoying when selecting text in Chrome): defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false
• Spotify
• Slack
• Rectangle Pro
• DaisyDisk
• ChatGPT
• Claude
• Linear
• Zed
• brew install nvim
• brew install mariadb
• brew install npm
• brew install pnpm@9
• brew install apache2.
• brew install php. Enable in Apache with LoadModule, FilesMatch and DirectoryIndex directives as per homebrew output and brew services restart apache2.
• brew install gh
• brew install composer
• brew install bat
• brew install atuin
• brew install delta
• npm install -g rtm-cli
• git clone important repos (ff, pd, server)
• Restore any local databases for dev (ff, decksite, logsite)
• ln -s ~/ff/src/www /opt/homebrew/var/www/ff
• GRANT ALL ON ff.* TO ff@localhost IDENTIFIED BY *REDACTED*
• pd setup
• Check open but unsaved files in Sublime Text in case there’s anything you need to preserve
• git status in any recent repos and check for uncommitted work.