These Are the First Changes You Should Make to Any New MacBook.
If you’ve recently bought a new Mac, you won’t have to spend days customizing it to your liking. Whether it’s work, school, or a little bit of everything, following these eight tips will have your new laptop ready for anything.
Use the Migration Assistant to restore from backups
If you’re migrating from an old Mac to a new one, Migration Assistant is your best friend. It appears during the initial setup process and allows you to restore all your data from iCloud or Time Machine backups, which is much easier than manually moving files from one Mac to another. Alternatively, you can use great third-party backup software to make a copy of your old Mac and restore it to your new computer .
Skip the Mac App Store
A lot of people make the mistake of going to the Mac App Store right after setting up a new Mac without taking into account the great apps that aren’t available in Apple’s mainstream app market. There are plenty of useful third-party apps outside of Apple’s walled garden, but you don’t have to download them one at a time. To help you get started, check out our guide to the easiest ways to bulk install apps on a new Mac .
Use Spotlight search (or something better)
Spotlight Search is what you need if you want to search for anything on your Mac: just press Command + Space and search for apps, files or folders, or even try calculations or currency conversions. As a better alternative , Alfred and Raycast are both excellent .
Change your Safari preferences
Switching from Chrome to Safari will extend your Mac’s battery life, which alone might be reason enough to use it on a MacBook. (Safari is pretty good overall, but changing a few settings can make it even better .) However, it doesn’t have the same level of extensions as other browsers. If that’s a deal breaker, try this browser , which allows you to install add-ons for both Chrome and Firefox.
Install a volume control app
Your Mac won’t let you set your own per-app volume controls. This means that every app will be set to the same system volume unless the app has a built-in volume setting. But third-party apps allow you to lower the volume of alerts from certain apps (like Messages or Slack) without adjusting the volume of other sources. To give it a try, download the free BackgroundMusic app or try the paid SoundSource app .
Customize the context menu
If you don’t need the same default right-click options as everyone else, you can change the options to remove unnecessary actions and prioritize the ones you use regularly. Here is how you can do it .
Automatically empty the trash
If you keep deleting files and emptying the Trash every few days, you can automate this. macOS allows you to automatically delete files older than 30 days , which is very handy if you don’t want to free up space manually every time. Set macOS to automatically empty the Recycle Bin by opening Finder, choosing Finder > Preferences > Advanced , and checking the Delete items from Recycle Bin after 30 days check box. Before enabling this feature, be sure to use a good file backup service for your Mac to avoid accidental data loss. We also have some great Finder suggestions to make your Mac file manager even better.
Make the most of your trackpad
Gestures work so well in macOS that you may not feel the need to buy a mouse. If you’re new to using your MacBook trackpad or need some tips, check out our list of the best trackpad tweaks . Gestures will save you a lot of time by allowing you to switch between desktops, open all open windows, and use other useful shortcuts. If you use a mouse on your Mac, you can still use gestures with this free utility .