The 50(+) Steps I Go Through Setting Up My Brand New Mac

I’ve already made a similar list years ago, but it has changed quite a bit so I felt that it needed a refresh. These are all the steps I go through. Only very few are mandatory for everyone, most of them are just how I like my mac to be. You can probably have a totally working mac for anything you want to do with less than 20 of these steps, but I feel like I’m missing something if my mac doesn’t have most of the things listed here.

• Log In to my iCloud account*
• Make sure not to select use the iCloud account as login password*
• Install System Updates*
• Download Dropbox to sync passwords over (using 1Password)
• Set up iCloud Keychain and sync over Internet Accounts section*
• Go through all the System Preferences and change everything (that you can change) to the same as other mac [I usually have both macs one next to each other to make this step easier]
• Install Alfred. Change the keyboard shortcut to ⌘SPACE, replacing Spotlight
• Start Xcode download (will take a few hours)
• Login to Dropbox
• Install 1Password and VSCode (my main writing app) + 1Password Mini
• Open Terminal, look in disbelief at the awful theme, close it. Proceed to download iTerm and install it.
• Install Firefox and add uBlock for Firefox as an extension, also add the 1Password extension
• Install TextExpander
• Open terminal and run defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles YES to show hidden files
• Sync Alfred, Safari and Firefox settings
• Install Keyboard Maestro
• Set up TextExpander e Keyboard Maestro using previous exports
• Install homebrew \curl -fsSL https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable
• Export installed homebrew packages from the other mac and install them¹
• Install rvm /usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
• Install latest version of ruby
• gem install cocoapods fastlane

• Install SSH keys for everything (Github, Gitlab):

  1. Generate a key pair using ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -C "mail@mail.com"
  2. If it has a custom name add it manually ssh-add /Users/valentinourbano/.ssh/githubSSHKEY, in any case, move it in the ~/.ssh/ folder.
  3. Check if it works using ssh -T git@github.com
• Install Jekyll and Gatsby
• Install CleanMyMac, Fantastical, f.lux, Bartender, iStatMenus, Amphetamine, Hazel, Timing and Transmit

• Install Unity and Android Studio

• Mandatory Step