Get ready to maximise your Mac’s potential and unleash its full capabilities. Here’s a list of settings you should consider updating on your mac and a list of apps that can boost your productivity
Mac Settings You Should Change NOW!
- Three finger drag: This is one of the most underused mac feature. I know a lot of people in my circle who clicks on a file, and keep the click active to drag and drop a file. It is so much easier to do all of this using the three finger drag gesture in mac.
Enable this: System Settings → Accessibility → Pointer Control → Trackpad Options… → Dragging style → Three-Finger Drag
- Tap to click: You don’t have to forcefully click on the trackpad to register a click. A gentle tap would do.
Enable this: System Settings → Trackpad → Tap to click
- Tap with Three Fingers to Lookup: Another three finger functionality that will change the way you consume information — Works anywhere on the mac and works very well. While reading, when you come across any word you don’t understand, just hover over and tap with three fingers to see the definition from the inbuilt dictionary.
Enable this: System Settings → Trackpad → Look up & data detectors → Tap with three fingers
- Increase Tracking speed: Increase tracking speed bit-by-bit to get to things faster. You can definitely go one or two points up than the default tracking speed.
Enable this: System Settings → Trackpad → Tracking speed
- Show Battery Percentage
Enable this: System Settings → Control Centre → Battery → Show Percentage
- More Space Display: Enable this to get more screen real estate. Who doesn’t want more screen space?
Enable this: System Settings → Displays → More Space
Best Mac Applications – Free or One Time Purchase
- Spotlight: Alfred / Raycast (Free)
- Task Manager: Todoist (Free version)
- Video Playback: IINA (Free)
- Browser: Brave (Free), Chrome (Free), Arc (New), Safari (Default / Free)
- Note Taking: Obsidian (Free), Notion (Free), Apple Notes (Free)
- Design: Figma (Free version), Affinity Designer (One Time Fee), Canva (Free version)
- Window Manager: Magnet (One Time Fee), Raycast (Inbuilt functionality), Rectangle (Free), Spectacle (Free)
- Image Editor: Pixelmator Pro (One Time Fee), Affinity Photo (One Time Fee)
- Menu Bar: Hidden Bar (Free)
- Utilities: App Cleaner (Free), Unarchiver (Free),
- Shortcuts: cheatsheet (Free)
- Compressor: Handbrake (Free)
- Screenshots: CleanShot X (One Time Fee), Shottr (Free)
- Wallpapers: Unsplash Wallpapers (Free), Raycast (Unsplash plugin)
- Code Editor: Visual Studio Code (Free)
- Music Playback: Spotify (Free), Apple Music
- Habit Tracker: Streaks (One Time Purchase)
Would you like me to check out any other apps / settings? Let me know in the comments.