MacOS settings for security and productivity (updated 2020)

I was pretty impressed that my previous OSX install had served me for 4 years of heavy software development and daily personal use.

But a time has come for a fresh system reinstall. During the setup, I had some troubles remembering all useful system settings and tweaks I’ve made, so here’s the list for my future reference, and possible use for other power users.

Apps

Utility Apps

• Karabinier - a tool for remapping keys
  • Replace CapsLock with ESC
  • Switch right command with right alt (for easier access to polish diacritic chars)
• Alfred (free or $25) - application launcher and a swiss army knife
  • Bind CMD + F1, CMD + F2, etc. to app activate, my most used apps are Chrome, MacVim, and iTerm
  • Add a task to task manager’s inbox, e.g. inbox Buy milk
  • Some custom scripts, e.g. j GR-123"command to open Jira ticket
• Spectacle - simple window manager, organize windows using keyboard
• KeepingYouAwake - puts a coffee cup icon on the menu bar, clicking it prevents your Mac from going to sleep for an hour (modern version of Caffeine app)
• Flux - prevents your eyes from being burned in late hours
• MenuMeters
  • displays system metrics (CPU, memory, network, disk usage) on menu bar
  • quickly identify anomalies like zombie apps taking 100% of CPU power
• MonitorControl - software controls for monitor brightness
• BetterTouchtool - customize TouchBar icons
• UnnaturalScrollWheels - automatically enable “Natural” mouse scrolling on Apple Mouse and disable it for other mouses

Security Apps

• 1Password ($65 or $3/month) - fully featured and good looking password manager
• ClamXav ($30) - open-source antivirus, useful for scanning apps from not trusted sources
• LittleSnitch ($30) - firewall, it requires you to set rules for any new Internet connections
  • Detect suspicious connections
  • Block unnecessary analytics/tracking connections
• GPG Suite - GUI tools making using GPG email and files encryption easy, integrates with Mail.app
• Chrome with my favorite plugins:
  • Disconnect - disables tracking/analytics/ad-network scripts
  • uBlock Origin - best ad-blocking tool
  • Bookolio - displays a nice list of bookmarks in empty tabs, I like it better than having the bookmarks bar always visible

Console tools

• iTerm2 - a better terminal
• Install ZSH with ohmyzsh configuration: https://github.com/ohmyzsh/ohmyzsh
• Install ZSH plugins: https://medium.com/@Clovis_app/configuration-of-a-beautiful-efficient-terminal-and-prompt-on-osx-in-7-minutes-827c29391961
• Install Popular command replacements: https://remysharp.com/2018/08/23/cli-improved
• Install FiraCode font with icons: https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts/tree/master/patched-fonts/FiraCode

Preferences

System Preferences

• Security & Privacy
  • FileVault - enable full-disk encryption
    • Fix a security loophole by using hibernation instead of sleep: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/maximizing-filevault-security-mac-os-x-matt-washchuk
• Date & Time
  • Display the time with seconds
  • Use a 24-hour clock
  • Show day of the week
  • Show date
• Keyboard
  • Keyboard
    • Key Repeat - Fast
    • Delay Until Repeat - Short
    • Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys
      • You will need to hold Fn to use brightness/volume controls, but you can bind anything to function keys
  • Text
    • Disable all the auto-correct crap
    • Disable accents menu on key hold, run: defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false
• Dock
  • Automatically hide and show the Dock - I use keys most of the time to change apps
• General
  • Use dark menu bar and Dock
• Mouse
  • Enable right click
• Accessibility
  • Enable zoom on option+mousewhell
• Display
  • Disable “automatically adjust brightness”
• Mission Control
  • Prevent automatic desktops rearrangement preferences

Finder Preferences

• Remove unused things from the sidebar
• Advanced
  • Show all file extensions

TextEdit Preferences

• Preferences
  • Plain Text - make it like good old notepad
    • copy & paste to get rid of text formatting

Digging deeper

Here are a few tutorials for tweaking hidden system settings. Go through them and enable those you find suitable.

OSX for hackers settings

A great set of ~100 settings for power users:

• El Capitan: https://gist.github.com/brandonb927/3195465
• Sierra: https://github.com/mathiasbynens/dotfiles/blob/master/.macos

Security guides

Complete guide on how to make MacOS more secure:

• https://github.com/drduh/macOS-Security-and-Privacy-Guide

General Internet security guide:

• https://www.privacytools.io/

Simple things accesible from system preferences:

• http://docs.hardentheworld.org/OS/OSX_10.11_El_Capitan

• Disable macOS services calling to Cupertino:

• https://github.com/karek314/macOS-home-call-drop

Block malicious domains

The list contains a huge collection of tracking / malicious / ad-network internet addresses. Put them inside your /etc/hosts system file to block them on DNS level.

• http://someonewhocares.org/hosts

Other references

• https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/my-mac-os/