How I Set Up a Clean Mac.

This is a new Mac, and I used to spend hours trying to set it up the perfect way. But give it a week, and it's always back to chaos. I mean, it's just not inviting to work in a messy office, so why wouldn't the same apply to your digital workspace? So, let's hit the reset button. We are now at the stage where I can show you not only the cleanest looking, but also the most functional Mac setup I've ever used. Alright, we'll start with a few quick changes for that clean look, and then move on to the pro stuff. First up, the wallpaper. Of course, that's personal preference, but I'm all about that color gradients with a nice blur. It kind of adds a sense of depth to the screen and makes your windows really pop out. You can get my blurred wallpapers for free, link down below. The dock is a place only for the apps I use every single day. I drag all other apps out and open them through the launchpad or spotlight search when needed. For the same reason, in the desktop and dock settings, I always switch off suggested and recent apps, which removes this part of the dock. Plus, while we're here, let's automatically hide the dock for both the clean look and that extra inch of vertical screen space. Very neat. For those of you who want the ultimate clean look, the finer settings let us remove the hard drive and external drive icons from the desktop. Now, many people swear by this, but I try to avoid sticking random files onto my desktop whenever possible. Now, I do sometimes break that rule, but what many people don't know is that there's a neat way to still keep that space clean. Back in the desktop and dock settings, we can uncheck show items on desktop. This kind of gives us the best of both worlds. You can drop off files here, but they are automatically hidden and won't distract you when you're in an app. Plus, you can now share your screen at work without accidentally revealing the hidden-for-a-reason parts of your personal life. Now, there's only one widget here, and that's the DayHub app from my iPhone. It does nothing more than show my upcoming events synced from Apple Calendar, and I use it for two reasons. One, the simple design and color options, and two, that it prepares me for all upcoming events, whilst the native Apple Calendar widget only shows the events of the current day, which are often... ...none. Oh, and before I forget, the moment I get my hands on a new Mac, I tweak the display setting, because by default, macOS is just slightly too bloated for me, whilst the more space-scaling option is perfect. I mean, just look how much more apps and content you can fit on screen. Okay, we've done the basics, so let's check out the three things that make this setup ultra-unique. The app HazeOver channels your focus to your currently active window by dimming everything else on screen. Trust me, once you get used to this, you don't want to go back to normal. Plus, I love the way you can use your fingers on the trackpad to control the dimming amount. Wait, that was a weird thing to say. I'm a huge fan of the Command-8 shortcut to hide apps like music when they're just running in the background. Now, not many people know this, but hiding apps gets even better when you paste this command into the terminal app. From now on, all hidden apps show as translucent in the dock, so you don't lose track of what's running and what's not. Up to my menu bar, I've pinned three shortcuts that I use non-stop. One to open my iCloud keychain passwords in the settings, another to control my office slides with just one click, and a super handy one that lets me paste in a link and get a shortened version back. You can download those shortcuts in the video description. Okay, we've made quite a lot of progress, but here's the thing. We can't not talk about the heart of your Mac, aka file management. If your Finder isn't organized, your Mac isn't really either. So, let's get five quick Finder changes out of the way. In the Finder settings, we can uncheck every sidebar item we don't need, and just by chance, there are loads. Plus, in the Tag section, I remove every single tag because I simply don't use them. Next, I fill up the sidebar again, but this time with my most used folders, especially those from my iCloud, so they're always just a click away. And change my mind, but the best viewing option is the list view. Forget the big icons, list view is easier to navigate, takes up less space, and displays additional info, such as file sizes, file types, and dates. And it gets even better when you hit Command and Plus once, so that you've also got a bigger icon preview too. Speaking of which, because I deal with many image and video files, I always had to view and enable the item preview to quickly glance at any file. And as we like to minimize repetitive workflows, I love creating templates, but with a small twist. For documents I need to create over and over again, like invoices, I make one template file. Then I hit Command and I, and in the Info panel, we can tick Stationary Pad. Now, every time you open that file, you automatically get a clean copy. Saves loads of time, plus you'll never again have to face the... Oops, I edited the template horror. I've tried hundreds of web browsers on my Mac, but I just keep on coming back to Safari. Now, you might say, and you'd be right. But here's the thing, that's exactly why I use it. It's so minimalist and basic, making it blend in perfectly with a clean Mac setup. And it's super fast too. But defaults are just a starting point and not the destination, so I strip down my start page even more and turn off all the extras like series suggestions and privacy report. Oh, and for bookmarks, I opt for the Favorites bar up top, of course, minus the website icons for the cleanest look possible. Now, let me show you how I turn all of this to the next level with focus filters. Because a clean and distraction-free Mac isn't just about what you see, but also what you see at what time. I've set up one focus filter for work and it's a game changer. Let me explain. We all know that focus modes can block notifications from certain apps or people, which is quite useful on its own. But what we can also do is add filters. So just for example, with my work focus on, I only see my work-related events in the calendar app and in mail, only my work inbox and nothing else. And what's the real game changer is adding a new Safari profile to your focus so that it completely separates your browsing history, data, cookies, and tabs when you're working, which, let's be honest, is great so that you don't get any browsing history-inspired ads when you're at work. Now, cutting clutter on your Mac is also about cutting apps for tasks you can already do natively on your Mac for free. And you might be surprised that this includes built-in flight tracking, internet speed tests, or converting images to other file types. If you want to know how to do all those things, you should watch this video next. Plus, you'll find out about 47 further Mac features in just under 11 minutes. Alright, I will see you there. Thank you so much for watching and have an amazing day.