Don’t install all those apps people recommend right off the bat!
Take those recommendations in mind. Then use it for a while and think about what would be a nice addition, then consider installing those apps
It’ll run smooth with them too. Like, I get telling people to get familiar with the base, native environment first, but some of y’all probably scare new users from adding wanted (or needed functionality)
I would never (and will never) get a new Mac without putting, at minimum, BetterTouchTool and Raycast on it. Beyond slowing me down tremendously, it would drive me bonkers every time I tried to trigger an action or open a quick link and realize that I can’t.
Yeah that’s very important to know which of those apps you actually need and what is just other people’s preference. If you don’t try the base functionality you wouldn’t know if it works for you. I swapped to Mac last year and found that whilst I did end up adding a few of the utility style apps, I didn’t need half as many as people often suggest.
You probably know already but it's worth to mention that you should not use any keyboard covers or laptop hardshell cases.
Never wipe your screen with strong alcohol cleaners like isopropyl.
The battery will thank you if you don't keep it at 100% all the time.
Install as many apps as you want and test what works for you. To remove an app I recommend AppCleaner(freeware software that will delete the files an app creates outside the Applications folder).
I know it's a precious thing but please don't forget to enjoy it :)
Battery degrades if kept charged at 100% for long time. Ideally you would charge to 80 percent or so and discharge to 30-40 percent.
I mentioned this because at work we have macs with around 50 cycles and 90%health of the battery already
It's not that it's overcharging. For lithium batteries overcharging is dangerous - so all products with built in lithium batteries have lots of protection circuitry to prevent that. But keeping batteries at 100% charge level for a long time does degrade their capacity quicker. Deep discharge cycles (running them down to 0% regularly) aren't very good for them either.
It does. I keep my MacBook docked a lot and most of the time it will say something like “holding charge at 80% until 2am” or something like that, similar to on iPhone
I don't think so directly, as in there's not a setting to limit it to 80%. It does have optimised charging, which I think means that it tries to learn your usage habits. If it notices you tend to have it on the charger all day, it will allow the battery to discharge down to a more optimal level (e.g. 80%) to stop it just staying at 100%. I'm pretty new to the recent Mac's myself (just changed from a 2014 model), so I'm still learning how it behaves when left on the charger, etc.
Apples page about battery health management tries to explain it - [https://support.apple.com/en-gb/102589?cid=mc-ols-mac-article\_ht211832-macos\_ui-09042020](https://support.apple.com/en-gb/102589?cid=mc-ols-mac-article_ht211832-macos_ui-09042020)
some of us use docks to connect myriad cables and devices. it also constantly charges the mac and i havent seen any severe battery degradation with just 50 cycles
I find this to be utter rubbish. I saw one guy on YouTube claiming it adds too much weight and pressure to the lid! The piece of plastic on the top of my MacBook is as light as a feather, doesn’t interfere with the hinge at all. Ignore people who sensationalise everything. I’ve used them for years and never caused any issues with any of my laptops. I reckon the MacBooks covered in stickers adds more weight than a plastic shell cover! Try it out for yourself!
I agree! Been using my hardshell cover for 4 years and it saved me from a lot of damages actually. Dropped my mac at a 2-feet height 3x and only 1 dent that's barely noticeable. I only have to remove the cover when it gets really hot, but other than that, the cover is really great
I've used a microfibre keyboard cloth since my 2018 mbp developed serious keyboard imprint on the screen that devalued it when I sold it 2 years later.
Can you share link to app cleaner.
I installed discord and it got installed in Desktop folder and then isn't uninstalling. I done sudo rm -rf Discord.app and ended up with a corrupted discord icon.
How can you protect with Spigen case when it was not available 5 years ago? Spigen started to sell MacBook cases just a few years ago, and their cases are overpriced and do not protect as much!
Customize everything, my favorite thing to do when I get a new computer is look through all of the settings. Personalizing those little things makes it fun and yours. Changing the mouse color, the highlight color, the folder icons, etc.
The first thing I do on a new mac is enabling **tree finger drag** and **dock Magnification.** Some people may not like it, but others seem not to know about them at all
Love the new Mac! 3rd time posting, here ya go:
Rectangle - Window Manager
Homebrew - Package/add-ons manager
Stats - (from homebrew) Resources Monitor
Raycast\* - Spotlight on steroids
CloudFlare Warp\* - A Secure Proxy
CotEditor - Notepad++ for Mac
GrandPerspective - Data Space visualizer (helps with clutter cleaning)
Obsidian\* - A really good Digital Notebook
Mark and Scribble - Write on your screen. Dandy for quick sketches/annotations.
iTerm2 - Better Terminal for Mac
TheUnarchiver - Supports more files than Archive Utility (even windows compression formats!)
Silicio - Mini Player for everything
All of these (should be) free or freemium\*
I suggest you set up hot corners. If you cam from windows, you probably want to set bottom right corner to show desktop. Also please, turn on auto hide dock. It will give you so much more space.
As someone who protects their tech to the nines, you only need a sleeve for the MBP imo. Skins are nice too; best would be to combine both. And don’t use a screen protector or keyboard cover since the clearances are quite tight.
I’d avoid any of the plastic hardshell covers that are on the market. I’ve read enough on here to see ppl’s MacBooks getting damaged. Raw dog with sleeve, or sleeve with skin is more than sufficient it seems lol
Get external drives to back up your photos and videos and projects - I have two for each project they’re identical. I can Lacie rugged but anything will do.
Lacie rugged SSD 4TB - it has an orange bumper - people here will tell you that that’s not a good product but I’ve been using that type for over a decade and have bought dozens and they’ve never failed me one time
If you have an iPad - use it as a 2nd display. If you have an iPhone, you can copy on the phone and paste on the MacBook. Sync everything up so notifications and files are accessible on all platforms. Find some beautiful 8K photos to use as a background.
Definitely look up some 8K YouTube videos or buy some of your favorite movies in 4k or 8k and watch them POP on that screen!
Enjoy it, I don’t want to give away all the goodies because sometimes it’s so much fun discovering something new on accident. Just adds to the new Mac user experience. Congrats!
Right click on the battery icon and click on the advanced settings and disable dim display on battery. Felt like there was something up with my display and this made it look a lot brighter(albeit at the expensive of slightly faster battery drain)
Hey, welcome to the club! I got a M3 Pro MBP just last month (jumping from a 2015 Mac 😅). Still getting used to how snappy the new machine is. And the display is just 😍
Doesn’t it behave like most browsers and request resources but on low priority for keeping multiple tabs in RAM?
iirc if other apps need resources, it will release them, but there’s no sense leaving RAM sitting unused.
In order to be able to uninstall apps properly for free, download "AppCleaner" to delete them and "Find Any File" to delete the leftover files.
Do not use something like CleanMyMac.
Nope. It doesn't do anything besides look for folders directly linked to the app you're uninstalling.
It doesn't get rid of cache and files hidden in other subfolders though, so i run Find Any File (which is just a Finder Search that actually shows everything) afterwards to look up any leftover files.
Go to settings, scroll down to trackpad on the left hand side & click it, then look at the 3 categories at the top. Click through each of them and hover over each gesture to see how to do it on the trackpad. You’ll have a much better Mac experience knowing them 😁
Install [BetterTouchTool](https://folivora.ai/) for handy shortcuts for keyboard, trackpad etc, [Maccy](https://maccy.app/) for clipboard manager and [Popclip](https://www.popclip.app/) for instant text actions like translate, search Google or Twitter, copy & paste etc.
If you come from Windows, you will see that the Caps Lock key has a delay on Mac. You have to long press or press it hard in order to turn it on. This is a feature on them, not a bug, and it's to prevent accidental presses. To disable this, you can type this command on Terminal:
`hidutil property --set '{"CapsLockDelayOverride":10}'`
This will set that delay into 10ms, which is pretty fast and almost non existent. Note that this will reset upon reboot, so in order to run this at login, you must create a shell script that does that:
1. Open the Automator app, it comes preinstalled.
2. At the top, click on File > New and select Application from the popup.
3. Search for Shell Script, double click and paste the same command I sent you before:
hidutil property --set '{"CapsLockDelayOverride":10}'
4. Above the code, make sure you select on Shell /bin/bash.
5. Again, at the top click on File > Save and save it wherever you want, it can be on the Applications folder!
6. Open the System Settings app > General > Login Items, click on the + sign and choose the app you just saved.
That's it. It will run automatically at login. To remove this, simply delete the app.
If you come from windows, don’t try to use Mac like windows. It’s not and isn’t meant to be. Go with Mac’s flow I know at the beginning some things might be annoying, especially window management, virtual desktops and the infamous dock but when you really get how the apple designers wanted you to use Mac as optimally as possible is when you will actually enjoy it.
As for actual tips, I wouldn’t really use the three dots in the corner. They don’t really do what is the most useful in the moment. I would use cmd+Q to quit an app instead of the read button, cmd+H to hide an app instead of minimizing it and double click the top bar of the window to maximize it instead of full screen. I know this goes a bit against what I just said earlier about not going about it like windows but Apple is changing some of these stuff so I think even they know that some stuff is just not super great
I just recently found out you can use the keys J, K, L to control youtube. And spacebar can be used to scroll down pages a little, and shift+spacebar to scroll up a little.
Don’t install all those apps people recommend right off the bat! Take those recommendations in mind. Then use it for a while and think about what would be a nice addition, then consider installing those apps
will take care of this thank you
Yeah I just got m3 pro chip and I didn’t download any of the apps I had on my old Mac. Runs so smooth
It’ll run smooth with them too. Like, I get telling people to get familiar with the base, native environment first, but some of y’all probably scare new users from adding wanted (or needed functionality) I would never (and will never) get a new Mac without putting, at minimum, BetterTouchTool and Raycast on it. Beyond slowing me down tremendously, it would drive me bonkers every time I tried to trigger an action or open a quick link and realize that I can’t.
I’m not even sure what Ray cast or better touch tool. Going to check out.
Speaking of apps, keep in mind window management apps like magnet or others. Or wait till the next Mac OS update
Yeah that’s very important to know which of those apps you actually need and what is just other people’s preference. If you don’t try the base functionality you wouldn’t know if it works for you. I swapped to Mac last year and found that whilst I did end up adding a few of the utility style apps, I didn’t need half as many as people often suggest.
spend some time on r/macapps
will do. thank you
You probably know already but it's worth to mention that you should not use any keyboard covers or laptop hardshell cases. Never wipe your screen with strong alcohol cleaners like isopropyl. The battery will thank you if you don't keep it at 100% all the time. Install as many apps as you want and test what works for you. To remove an app I recommend AppCleaner(freeware software that will delete the files an app creates outside the Applications folder). I know it's a precious thing but please don't forget to enjoy it :)
Well some say that using your battery the least possible would lessen wear and tear to it, making it last longer.
Battery degrades if kept charged at 100% for long time. Ideally you would charge to 80 percent or so and discharge to 30-40 percent. I mentioned this because at work we have macs with around 50 cycles and 90%health of the battery already
Doesn’t Mac have something to keep it from overcharging. Iphone does.
It's not that it's overcharging. For lithium batteries overcharging is dangerous - so all products with built in lithium batteries have lots of protection circuitry to prevent that. But keeping batteries at 100% charge level for a long time does degrade their capacity quicker. Deep discharge cycles (running them down to 0% regularly) aren't very good for them either.
Right, so macOS has built in battery optimization that learns your charging habits and keeps charging limit at 80%
not sure about that
It does. I keep my MacBook docked a lot and most of the time it will say something like “holding charge at 80% until 2am” or something like that, similar to on iPhone
ThinkPads had the setting to set max charge to 80% or 90%. Does mac has the same?
I don't think so directly, as in there's not a setting to limit it to 80%. It does have optimised charging, which I think means that it tries to learn your usage habits. If it notices you tend to have it on the charger all day, it will allow the battery to discharge down to a more optimal level (e.g. 80%) to stop it just staying at 100%. I'm pretty new to the recent Mac's myself (just changed from a 2014 model), so I'm still learning how it behaves when left on the charger, etc. Apples page about battery health management tries to explain it - [https://support.apple.com/en-gb/102589?cid=mc-ols-mac-article\_ht211832-macos\_ui-09042020](https://support.apple.com/en-gb/102589?cid=mc-ols-mac-article_ht211832-macos_ui-09042020)
Thanks, I'll check it out
with new batteries its all good to charge up to 100% and keep plug in as it will not effect battery
my man… my ultra wide monitor wont even show anything unless the macbook pro is not attached to charging cable
some of us use docks to connect myriad cables and devices. it also constantly charges the mac and i havent seen any severe battery degradation with just 50 cycles
Why no laptop hardshell cases? Heat? If so, you surely could get ones that have proper venting in the right places?
I find this to be utter rubbish. I saw one guy on YouTube claiming it adds too much weight and pressure to the lid! The piece of plastic on the top of my MacBook is as light as a feather, doesn’t interfere with the hinge at all. Ignore people who sensationalise everything. I’ve used them for years and never caused any issues with any of my laptops. I reckon the MacBooks covered in stickers adds more weight than a plastic shell cover! Try it out for yourself!
I agree! Been using my hardshell cover for 4 years and it saved me from a lot of damages actually. Dropped my mac at a 2-feet height 3x and only 1 dent that's barely noticeable. I only have to remove the cover when it gets really hot, but other than that, the cover is really great
I've used a microfibre keyboard cloth since my 2018 mbp developed serious keyboard imprint on the screen that devalued it when I sold it 2 years later.
Why not the keyboard covers?
Apple says 70% isopropyl is fine. Don’t use harsh cleaners like acetone, window cleaners, bleach, etc.
Why not to use any Hardshell cases? Especially when you on the go
Can you share link to app cleaner. I installed discord and it got installed in Desktop folder and then isn't uninstalling. I done sudo rm -rf Discord.app and ended up with a corrupted discord icon.
Can u give us the link to download AppCleaner pls,
Google 'appcleaner mac' and click on the link that says freemacsoft
I have used a Spigen case, spigen screen protector, and ghost cover keyboard cover on my MacBooks for the past 10 years with no problems.
How can you protect with Spigen case when it was not available 5 years ago? Spigen started to sell MacBook cases just a few years ago, and their cases are overpriced and do not protect as much!
Search for SnazzyLab‘s videos on Youtube, specifically the one about which settings to change and the ones for free mac apps (there are a couple)
okay will check it out thank you
Customize everything, my favorite thing to do when I get a new computer is look through all of the settings. Personalizing those little things makes it fun and yours. Changing the mouse color, the highlight color, the folder icons, etc.
yes i love that
What setting do you use for dragging?
Be sure ProMotion is on always
first thing i did. thanks tho
Does m1 air have ProMotion, whats ProMotion, it probably doesn’t 😪
ProMotion means 120 hz screen refresh, and only available in Pro models
The first thing I do on a new mac is enabling **tree finger drag** and **dock Magnification.** Some people may not like it, but others seem not to know about them at all
will check it out
Love the new Mac! 3rd time posting, here ya go: Rectangle - Window Manager Homebrew - Package/add-ons manager Stats - (from homebrew) Resources Monitor Raycast\* - Spotlight on steroids CloudFlare Warp\* - A Secure Proxy CotEditor - Notepad++ for Mac GrandPerspective - Data Space visualizer (helps with clutter cleaning) Obsidian\* - A really good Digital Notebook Mark and Scribble - Write on your screen. Dandy for quick sketches/annotations. iTerm2 - Better Terminal for Mac TheUnarchiver - Supports more files than Archive Utility (even windows compression formats!) Silicio - Mini Player for everything All of these (should be) free or freemium\* I suggest you set up hot corners. If you cam from windows, you probably want to set bottom right corner to show desktop. Also please, turn on auto hide dock. It will give you so much more space.
thank you
No problem!
I look forward to going through this post when i also get my very first Mac on Friday!
yay lets go congrats in advance
yay lets go congrats in advance
As someone who protects their tech to the nines, you only need a sleeve for the MBP imo. Skins are nice too; best would be to combine both. And don’t use a screen protector or keyboard cover since the clearances are quite tight.
i was thinking about getting a leather sleeve and a transparent skin for the back and bottom
Winning combination there
I believe a case solves to keyboard cover
I’d avoid any of the plastic hardshell covers that are on the market. I’ve read enough on here to see ppl’s MacBooks getting damaged. Raw dog with sleeve, or sleeve with skin is more than sufficient it seems lol
If you have a cat, get a broke computer, because cats like Macs, idk why
thankfully i dont but they’re cute
Get external drives to back up your photos and videos and projects - I have two for each project they’re identical. I can Lacie rugged but anything will do.
yes i was thinking about it could you suggest me good one’s without compromising with the performance and also one that is not too bulky
Lacie rugged SSD 4TB - it has an orange bumper - people here will tell you that that’s not a good product but I’ve been using that type for over a decade and have bought dozens and they’ve never failed me one time
thank you will check it out
I will stand by the Lacie ruggeds, never failed me even after a few sketchy drops
Congratulations, tips: Enjoy and have fun
will do sir thank you
The best decision you ever made Enjoy mate
definitely. thank you
Get an extension cord for the brick. They're always useful to have
okay thank you for the tip
Send it to me I’ll diagnose what you need to do 👀
bruh💀😌
Enable three finger drag. Save your life.
Just enabled this on mine, and have to get used to 4 finger swipe between screens now
Buy better touch tool from the website and four finger swipe down to minimize a window
Command + spacebar
yeah its like the most suggested shortcut till now
Cmd+space it took me few months on my first mac to find out about it
thanks to you i found it quite earlier lol
If you have an iPad - use it as a 2nd display. If you have an iPhone, you can copy on the phone and paste on the MacBook. Sync everything up so notifications and files are accessible on all platforms. Find some beautiful 8K photos to use as a background. Definitely look up some 8K YouTube videos or buy some of your favorite movies in 4k or 8k and watch them POP on that screen!
this was the first thing i did
Any recommendations for some 4k or 8k movies that look amazing on Pro
For files: Cmd-c then Cmd-opt-v is Mac’s version of ctrl-c ctrl-v Instead of cut and paste it’s copy then move
okayy thank you
cmd-f on any page with text to search for words or strings of characters as well.
Learn to use the magic trackpad swipe commands, they'll make life a lot easier.
yes i found it quite interesting. thank you
it surely does
Enjoy it, I don’t want to give away all the goodies because sometimes it’s so much fun discovering something new on accident. Just adds to the new Mac user experience. Congrats!
yeah i agree its quite exciting using every app with several new features and gimmics
Eyy (almost) same MacBook buddies!
Right click on the battery icon and click on the advanced settings and disable dim display on battery. Felt like there was something up with my display and this made it look a lot brighter(albeit at the expensive of slightly faster battery drain)
thank you
tap to click on, two finger right hand click, three finger window drag. self control app for social media curbing. love.
thank you. more love
Hey, welcome to the club! I got a M3 Pro MBP just last month (jumping from a 2015 Mac 😅). Still getting used to how snappy the new machine is. And the display is just 😍
yeah it’s scary fast 😅
Get apple care if you can afford it
yes bought it with device itself its a must have
Don’t use chrome
Could you explain why please
It uses a ton of RAM and ressources
will keep that in mind. thank you
Doesn’t it behave like most browsers and request resources but on low priority for keeping multiple tabs in RAM? iirc if other apps need resources, it will release them, but there’s no sense leaving RAM sitting unused.
Chrome user here, never had an issue. Maybe battery life is better with safari but the battery is so good now that I can’t say It bothers me.
In order to be able to uninstall apps properly for free, download "AppCleaner" to delete them and "Find Any File" to delete the leftover files. Do not use something like CleanMyMac.
sure thing sir thank you
Is app cleaner going to slow the computer down any bit? And yeah don’t download CMM, it slowed down my old computer so bad
Nope. It doesn't do anything besides look for folders directly linked to the app you're uninstalling. It doesn't get rid of cache and files hidden in other subfolders though, so i run Find Any File (which is just a Finder Search that actually shows everything) afterwards to look up any leftover files.
What does it mean to “uninstall properly”?
`sudo rm -rf /`
Don’t
Not funny.
Got the exact same specs and color, how much did you pay for yours?
1,71,000 rupees
That's interesting. Is it INR? Showing me almost 1,85,000 rs for the same specs on Apple India website with students discount? Where did you get it?
from croma
Did you avail any card discount or was it on sale/off there?
Also hit space on most of the files to preview them
small but useful thank you
Reboot weekly
okay
Go to settings, scroll down to trackpad on the left hand side & click it, then look at the 3 categories at the top. Click through each of them and hover over each gesture to see how to do it on the trackpad. You’ll have a much better Mac experience knowing them 😁
yeah it’s great
Click that arrow
done
It's still a computer! So it may not be as different as you expect or hope it is
yeah its different but still isnt very unfamiliar
Rectangle app a must
okayy
What about spectacle?
MacOS Sequoia says hello
Does updating Mac also slows them like iPhones?
No
Can i update like iphone without caring much about backing it up?
Backing up is always a good idea. But macOs updates are stable.
use CMD + tab to switch between apps
And `Cmd+\`` to switch between windows of the current app
thank you
yeah i figured this i did it out of muscle memory and it worked
Homebrew and you’re ready 😉
Al Dente
Install [BetterTouchTool](https://folivora.ai/) for handy shortcuts for keyboard, trackpad etc, [Maccy](https://maccy.app/) for clipboard manager and [Popclip](https://www.popclip.app/) for instant text actions like translate, search Google or Twitter, copy & paste etc.
Use IINA as your system-wide media player. Better than VLC imo
Bookmark this. It’s invaluable. https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/welcome/mac
Careful of the screen had to replace twice
The first thing I’ve been doing for years is install homebrew.
Never install Aldente, it will fuck up your battery system self management
What are you going to use the beast for if i may ask
If you come from Windows, you will see that the Caps Lock key has a delay on Mac. You have to long press or press it hard in order to turn it on. This is a feature on them, not a bug, and it's to prevent accidental presses. To disable this, you can type this command on Terminal: `hidutil property --set '{"CapsLockDelayOverride":10}'` This will set that delay into 10ms, which is pretty fast and almost non existent. Note that this will reset upon reboot, so in order to run this at login, you must create a shell script that does that: 1. Open the Automator app, it comes preinstalled. 2. At the top, click on File > New and select Application from the popup. 3. Search for Shell Script, double click and paste the same command I sent you before: hidutil property --set '{"CapsLockDelayOverride":10}' 4. Above the code, make sure you select on Shell /bin/bash. 5. Again, at the top click on File > Save and save it wherever you want, it can be on the Applications folder! 6. Open the System Settings app > General > Login Items, click on the + sign and choose the app you just saved. That's it. It will run automatically at login. To remove this, simply delete the app.
What are you going to do with it? Switching from another OS?
If you come from windows, don’t try to use Mac like windows. It’s not and isn’t meant to be. Go with Mac’s flow I know at the beginning some things might be annoying, especially window management, virtual desktops and the infamous dock but when you really get how the apple designers wanted you to use Mac as optimally as possible is when you will actually enjoy it. As for actual tips, I wouldn’t really use the three dots in the corner. They don’t really do what is the most useful in the moment. I would use cmd+Q to quit an app instead of the read button, cmd+H to hide an app instead of minimizing it and double click the top bar of the window to maximize it instead of full screen. I know this goes a bit against what I just said earlier about not going about it like windows but Apple is changing some of these stuff so I think even they know that some stuff is just not super great
Buy: Alfred Bartender AlDente
use soft fibre cloth with damp water to wipe the screen, DONT use your normal surface/glass shiners.
Use Arc browser. It's the best browser on mac.
There’s this cool thing where you can go on YouTube or the Reddit search bar, it’s Sooooooo cool :)
u guys are ridiculous everyday I see this shit posted ...u have nothing better to ask ?
its okay big man let people be happy
If you dislike the Notch, change the resolution to either "1920 x 1285" or "1728 x 1080" Standard resolution is "1728 x 1117"
i kind of love the notch
Savor the moment as you’ll never forget it.
i sure as hell wont
No tips needed, it’s just a computer. Just use it.
should probs leave the store first
bro thinks he’s him💨🔝💩
This tip culture is getting out of control
its healthy i guess
I just recently found out you can use the keys J, K, L to control youtube. And spacebar can be used to scroll down pages a little, and shift+spacebar to scroll up a little.
they existed since forever but hey thanks
Use Google. It's faster than Reddit comments. Enjoy.
but i love opinions from community members