Best tips for someone new to using a macbook

RAY · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

I just got an M3 pro too Try Arc it’s a fun little browser compared to Safari and the rest

I like it I am using it right now so cute

Zen · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

Turn off natural scrolling on your mouse trackpad I personally hate this and really if you can just swap the CMD key for the CTRL key like in Windows about 90 of keyboard commands are almost the same CMD C for copy CMD V for paste CMD X for cut so on and so forth what you usually see differences in are particular applications although in my experience MS Office keys are pretty similar

Fisher · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

brew Just use this for all the third party gnu stuff you need It’s possible to download and compile them but brew is just simpler think of it as yum for Mac

Noor · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

I can’t give you detailed advice since I switched from 32bit Windows 7

At first I tried to change macOS to fit my preferences which were 32bit Windows But then I slowly realized macOS is fine as it is Learning or getting used to how this OS works

Hope you find the best way to use Mac for yourself It’s really useful especially if you have other Apple products

Ira · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

As someone who just switched to a Mac MBP M2 I totally agree with a lot of great suggestions here

Check out the Alfred app it’s a fantastic spotlight replacement Amazing software for not just searching but a lot more

Sam · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

Download bettertouchtool

Noor · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

Install Little Snitch

Gentry · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

Settings > Trackpad:

Point & Click > Secondary click: Click or Tap with Two Fingers
Tap to click: on

Learn all these gestures and your productivity with the trackpad will shoot up

Whitney · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

Learn trackpad gestures
Learn the key combos
Hot corner shortcuts are great especially to lock the screen
Command + Spacebar will be your best friend searches files System Settings help menus and web links all at once

Oakley · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

Cheatsheet is good to have while you learn the shortcuts

Bennett · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

Change the default terminal window color and text color It feels nicer when I do that

Wilder · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

Every time I use my work laptop I miss the Command+Shift+4 shortcut to quickly snip from the screen I have it set up so I just CMD+V to paste it into messages or documents

RAY · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

Every time I use my work laptop I miss the Command+Shift+4 shortcut to quickly snip from the screen I have it set up so I just CMD+V to paste it into messages or documents

This is so helpful I really love manual snip to clipboard

Fisher · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

Command + Space open any app find any file and open it This will be the number one thing you can’t live without In my opinion Spotlight on the Mac is fantastic You can search inside PDFs emails etc with this command for instance

I recommend Magnet as a necessary addition to mac’s decent window manager it basically adds the tiling feature that Windows has but I prefer it

iTerm2 is a must-have

Paxton · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

Four finger swipe up to view all windows

Kipp · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

These tips have been super helpful for me Thank you so much

Hollis · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

A tip for your friend Don’t read!
Take a screenshot of the finder and set it as the desktop background Then hide all documents from the finder

Taylor · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

Hey which one did you get I haven’t owned a mac before so I’m thinking about choosing between the basic m3 and m2 pro I don’t do professional design or coding but I often do basic photo and video editing

Rowan · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

Hey which one did you get I haven’t owned a mac before so I’m thinking about choosing between the basic m3 and m2 pro I don’t do professional design or coding but I often do basic photo and video editing

If you’re going for the 14 inch MacBook Pro get the M2 Pro chip Apple removed a Thunderbolt 4 port on the base M3 MacBook Pro which is really disappointing Performance isn’t much different and right now you can get a 16GB M2 Pro MacBook Pro for the same price as the 8GB M3 MacBook Pro that was $200 less on Black Friday Having that extra 8GB is way more useful than a 10 percent performance boost for most pro app users

Porter · October 14, 2024, 10:05pm

What is one setting you would change right away after getting a new mac device I want to set things up to get the most out of it and I am curious what you all recommend

I would really like to hear from the experienced folks

I like typing this question in the forum search bar to see the weekly post