A simple script to configure macOS system preferences to my liking and install my favorite apps, services and frameworks. Completely refactored in 2026 for macOS Tahoe compatibility and to cover my current stack for useful, productive AI, coding and design work.

./setup.sh

The script will present a menu with configuration options:

• macOS settings - Configure system preferences and app defaults
• Dock layout - Set up Dock apps and settings
• Development tools - Install Homebrew, Oh My Zsh, Node, pnpm and Claude Code
• All of the above - Run everything

Configures more reasonable preferences for:

• Finder: Show hidden files, use list view, show path/status bar, show file extensions
• Menu bar: Hide WiFi, Battery, Spotlight, Siri, Focus Modes, Sound and Now Playing
• Screenshots: Save as PNG, disable drop shadows
• Keyboard: Enable key repeat (disable press-and-hold), faster repeat rate
• Trackpad: Faster tracking speed
• General: Expand save/print panels, disable app resume, enable auto-updates

As well as a few app preferences:

• Safari: Disable search suggestions to Apple, set blank homepage, disable password autofill
• Chrome: Disable swipe navigation, disable background mode, expand print dialog
• TextEdit: Use plain text mode with UTF-8 encoding
• Activity Monitor: Show all processes, sort by CPU usage

Clears the default Dock apps and adds your preferred apps in a nice order:

• Finder
• Messages
• Chrome, ChatGPT & Claude
• GitHub Desktop, Ghostty, Cursor & Xcode
• Downloads folder
• Trash

Installs the following tools if not already present:

• Homebrew - Package manager for macOS
• Oh My Zsh - Framework for managing Zsh configuration
• Node - JavaScript runtime
• pnpm - Fast, disk space efficient package manager
• Claude Code - Fast coding

Years ago, the original inspiration for this came from:

• mathiasbynens/dotfiles
• jaywcjlove/awesome-mac