5 Productivity Optimizations for Your New Macbook

Whether you’re a new Macbook Air 15" owner like me or a veteran user, the best time to optimize your computer to save the most time is as soon as possible. Here are a few optimizations/productivity boosts I went out of my way to set up right after starting up my Mac for the first time — let me know if you have any more in the comments!

1. Shortening Animations
2. Clipboard History
3. Remove Dock Apps
4. Disabling Mouse Acceleration
5. Upgrading your terminal
6. Bonus Tip

1. Shortening Animations

Lengthy “genie” effect

MacOS comes built in with various animations that happen when windows
are closed, opened, etc. While these are relatively benign, they can add up to a lot of time wasted and are pretty much unnecessary.

First, I got rid of the “genie” effect that happens by default when you minimize a window:

Next, I followed these instructions from a helpful Redditor u/Gummibando. Basically, open up your Terminal application (from Spotlight search or Applications → Utilities->Terminal) and then enter these commands to reduce some animation times on the Mac:

defaults write com.apple.finder DisableAllAnimations -bool true

disables all Finder animations. Relaunch Finder afterwards via Command-Option-Escape.

defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration -float .1
defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration -float .1

speeds up the Launchpad show/hide animation (you can modify the float values to your liking, a value of 0 disables the animation).

defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-page-duration -float .2

speeds up the Launchpad “page-flip” animation.

Even though my Macbook feels really fast, reducing these animations definitely makes the computer feel faster.

2. Clipboard History

One of my favourite features from Windows is that you can just press
Windows + V and it’ll bring up your recently copied items.

MacOS doesn’t have a built-in functionality that is similar to this, so to get
the same experience on MacOS, I enjoy using a free, open-source app called Clipy (https://clipy-app.com/). There are other similar apps out there, but some of them are paid and most of them don’t bring up the clipboard history at the mouse’s location, which is the most convenient place as you can choose to navigate with your mouse or number/arrow keys.

Clipy has more up its sleeve too: it allows you to customize the shortcut to bring it up (I chose Option + V to get a similar feeling to Windows + V), and also allows for customization of the popup menu. For example, the default popup menu groups the clipboard entries in groups of 10, but I chose to just show the clipboard entries directly by going to Clipy’s Preferences → Menu -> increasing inline items.

3. Removing Dock Apps

How to unpin apps from the dock

I remember watching a YouTube video about fashion a long time ago where the creator posited that while most people think that there is no harm in keeping clothes they don’t wear, they actually get in the way when you try to create an outfit that you like. I think the same can be said of the app dock, which is why you should take the time to remove any apps you don’t use, and pin apps that you do use. You’re saving just a bit of time every time you go to look for an app on your dock, which adds up over years of using your computer.

4. Mouse Settings

Apparently, the mouse on MacOS has acceleration, meaning it speeds up and slows down as it moves rather than moving 1:1 with your input. This can get in the way of activities that require mouse precision, like in gaming and drawing.

The solution is an application called LinearMouse which allows you to disable mouse acceleration. There was allegedly a way to disable it through the terminal, but some people said that it didn’t stay that way permanently.

LinearMouse also allows you to configure scrolling direction or both your mouse and trackpad independently, so you can have “normal” scrolling direction for both as if you were on any other laptop. Without this application, you would either be scrolling strangely with your mouse or your trackpad at any time.

5. Upgrading your terminal

Undoubtedly, many people buy a Mac computer for the developer experience. This last tip is for developers, so if that’s not you, leave a clap for the article and then click away!

Here are the must-haves in my opinion for creating a good development terminal (let me know if you think I’m missing something):

1. Homebrew: this is an unofficial package installer for MacOS that will let you install many other developer tools easily, and it’s probably an obvious install if you’ve heard of it.
2. Oh My Zsh: This adds customization to the default shell, which is Zsh. This includes easy configuration of themes, plugins, and much more that I don’t even know.
3. PowerLevel10k: A theme for Zsh that pairs nicely with Oh My Zsh. The first time you run your terminal after installing it, it’ll walk you through all the options and let you choose how you want your shell to look. This lets you make a really nice prompt on your terminal that can tell you information like what git branch you’re on and how long the last command took.
4. zsh-autosuggestions: This suggests commands from your terminal history as you’re typing, allowing you to just hit the right arrow to autocomplete your command. This is great for long commands
   that you don’t want to type out.

autosuggestions demo

I also like to set aliases early, because they tend to provide lots of value if I remember to use them.

In my ~/.zshrc file, I’ve added the following commands as aliases:

alias g="git"
alias zshrc="nano ~/.zshrc"
alias set-upstream="git push -u origin HEAD"
alias codex="cd ~/src/codex"

1. This allows me to use g status e.g. instead of git status
2. This allows me to just type zshrc to edit my zshrc
3. This automatically sets the upstream branch on the first push to a new git branch, something every developer has probably seen before
4. Lastly, this one is just a quick way to change directory into a directory that I use a lot.

Bonus Tip — LICEcap

If you’ve reached this far, you’ve probably seen the GIFs I’ve made for this article. They were all made with something called LICEcap. It’s free and it’s a really neat piece of software.

Basically, you have a resizeable, moveable window, and whatever is inside that window gets captured as a GIF. You can set the framerate, the file name, and really easily make GIFs of regions of interest in a way that no other app that I know of does so easily. The GIFs embed into most communication platforms seamlessly too, so it’s great for showing teammates your work. I’m not sponsored by them, it’s just genuinely a great app that I’m glad to have recently discovered.