Mac Setup Guide

This guide covers the basics of setting up a development environment on a new Mac. Whether you are an experienced programmer or not, this guide is intended for everyone to use as a reference for setting up your environment or installing languages/libraries.
These settings are all optional, consider them suggestions. Again this is my configuration, and you should always choose the setting that makes the most sense to you.
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Last update: macOS Ventura (Aug 7, 2023)

macOS Update

System Settings > General > Software Update
The first thing you should do is update your macOS to the latest version to have a more secure OS as well keep your machine up to date.

System Preferences

If this is a new computer there are a couple tweaks you could make to the System Preferences.

Firewall

System settings > Network
  • Activate the Firewall

FileVault

System settings > Privacy and Security
  • Turn on FileVault

Appearence

System settings > Appearence
  • Sidebar Icon Size → Small

Displays

System settings > Displays
  • Add more space

Trackpad

System settings > Trackpad
  • Point & Click
    • Enable ”Tap to click with one finger”
    • Change “Look up & data detectors” to  ”Tap with Three Fingers”

Internet Accounts

Add internet accounts

Dock

System settings > Desktop & Dock
  • Make the size of icons Small
  • Activate “Automatically hide and show de Dock”
  • Disable “Animate opening applications”
  • Disable “Show recent applications in Dock”
  • Automatically hide and show the menu bar → Desktop only

Control center

System settings > Control Center
  • Add the ”Bluetooth” and “Sound” icons to “Always show in Menu Bar”
  • Change ”Battery” to ”Show percentage”

Spotlight

System settings > Keyboard > Spotlight
  • Uncheck the ”Show spotlight search” shortcut as we'll be replacing them with Raycast

Internet Accounts

System settings > Internet Accounts
  • Add an iCloud account and sync Calendar, Find my Mac, Contacts etc.

Finder

Finder > Settings
  • General
    • Change ”New finder window show” to open in your Home Directory
  • Sidebar
    • Add Home and your Code Directory
  • Advanced
    • Enable “Show all filename extensions”
    • “Keep folders on top”
      • Enable “In windows when sorting by name”
      • Enable “On Desktop”

Software Apps

  • Editor - VSCode - You can see a review of my config 👉 here.

Development Environment

Command Line Tools for Xcode

Before you can run Homebrew you need to have the Command Line Tools for Xcode installed. It include compilers and other tools that will allow you to build things from source, and if you are missing this it's available through the App Store > Updates. You can also install it from the terminal by running the following:
sudo xcode-select --install

Homebrew

Homebrew calls itself The missing package manager for macOS and is an essential tool for any developer. To install Homebrew run the following in a terminal:
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
Then, to be able to use brew you need to start a new terminal session. After that you should make sure everything is working by running:
brew doctor
If everything is good, you should see no warnings, and a message that you are "ready to brew!".

zsh

The Z shell (also known as zsh) is a Unix shell that is built on top of bash (the default shell for macOS) with additional features. It's recommended to use zsh over bash. It's also highly recommended to install a framework with zsh as it makes dealing with configuration, plugins and themes a lot nicer.
Install zsh using Homebrew:
brew install zsh
Now you should install a framework, we recommend to use Oh My Zsh or Prezto. Note that you should pick one of them, not use both.
The configuration file for zsh is called .zshrc and lives in your home folder (~/.zshrc).
Creating a env.sh (optional)
We can include an env.sh file to store our aliases, exports, path changes etc. in order to not pollute our main configuration file too much. This file is found in the bottom of this page.

Oh My Zsh

Oh My Zsh is an open source, community-driven framework for managing your zsh configuration. It comes with a bunch of features out of the box and improves your terminal experience.
Install Oh My Zsh:
sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh/master/tools/install.sh)"
The installation script should set zsh to your default shell, but if it doesn't you can do it manually:
chsh -s $(which zsh)

Git

What's a developer without Git? To install, run:
brew install git
When done, to test that it installed properly you can run:
git --version
And which git should output /usr/local/bin/git.

Global .gitignote

First, create a .gitignore file for your global rules. Most people keep this in their home directory.
touch ~/.gitignore
Next, open it with your text editor of choice and add whatever files and folders you always want to ignore.
👉
Check my config file for .gitignore
Finally, configure git to use our newly created ~/.gitignore file.
git config --global core.excludesfile ~/.gitignore

Configure global options

First, we'll define your Git user:
git config --global user.name "Your Name Here"
git config --global user.email "your_email@youremail.com"

# Alias
git config --global alias.cm 'commit -m'
git config --global alias.ls 'log --oneline'
git config --global alias.st 'status -sb'
git config --global alias.cp cherry-pick
git config --global alias.f fetch
git config --global alias.pl pull
git config --global alias.save '!git add -A && git commit -m'
git config --global alias.ps push
git config --global alias.co checkout
git config --global alias.cob 'checkout -b'
git config --global alias.ll '!git branch --format='%(HEAD) %(color:yellow)%(refname:short)%(color:reset) - %(contents:subject) %(color:green)(%(committerdate:relative)) [%(authorname)]' --sort=-committerdate'
They will get added to your .gitconfig file.
 
Next, let’s add the autoSetupRemote option:
git config --global --add --bool push.autoSetupRemote true
 
Configure case sensitiveness:
git config --global core.ignorecase false

Configure SSH access to Github

GitLab uses the SSH protocol to securely communicate with Git. When you use SSH keys to authenticate to the GitLab remote server, you don't need to supply your username and password each time.
  • 1. Create SSH keys in your computer
      • Go to the terminal and enter the following
      ssh-keygen -b 4096 -t rsa
      You will be prompted to enter a filename. By default, your keys will be saved as id_rsa and id_rsa.pub.
  • 2. Add the SSH key to your Github account
      • Copy the contents of your public key file:
      pbcopy < ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
      Navigate to the Github SSH keys configuration page and add the SSH you just copied. You may use the name that you prefer as the identifier for the key.

Node

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine. The easiest way to handle node installations is using the Node Version Manager (nvm).
Download and install nvm via Homebrew:
brew install nvm
After that, we need to edit .zshrc  (vim ~/.zshrc) and add the below given lines at the end:
export NVM_DIR=~/.nvm
source $(brew --prefix nvm)/nvm.sh
 
👉
Check my config file for zsh
 
Then download Node and select your version by running:
source ~/.zshrc         # source your bashrc/zshrc to add nvm to PATH
command -v nvm          # check the nvm use message
nvm install node        # install most recent Node stable version
nvm ls                  # list installed Node version
nvm use node            # use stable as current version
nvm ls-remote           # list all the Node versions you can install
nvm alias default node  # set the installed stable version as the default Node

Dependencies managers

Yarn

Yarn is a package manager developed to provide more advanced capabilities that NPM lacked at the time (such as version locking) while also making it safer, more reliable, and more efficient.
Install yarn using the following command:
brew install yarn

Pnpm

pnpm is a fast, disk space efficient package manager developed by Microsoft.
Install pnpm using the following command:
brew install pnpm

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macOS UpdateSystem PreferencesFirewallFileVaultAppearenceDisplaysTrackpadInternet AccountsDockControl centerSpotlightInternet Accounts Finder Software AppsDevelopment EnvironmentCommand Line Tools for XcodeHomebrewzshOh My ZshGitGlobal .gitignoteConfigure global optionsConfigure SSH access to GithubNodeDependencies managersYarnPnpmFont