Mac Setup for Remote Work: Calls, Focus and Files

Working from a Mac all day puts weight on a handful of settings: what happens when you share your screen, whether notifications interrupt a call, and whether your work exists anywhere other than this laptop. Here is the setup, in the order that matters.

A screen you can share without thinking

Screen sharing is the highest-risk thing you do daily. Make the clean state one action rather than a scramble:

1. Hide desktop icons permanently. Your files stay exactly where they are, they are simply not drawn:

   defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool false && killall Finder
   
   # undo
   defaults delete com.apple.finder CreateDesktop && killall Finder

2. Learn Option-Command-H. Hides every app except the one in front. One keystroke before you click Share.
3. Share a window, not the screen, whenever the tool allows it. It is the only method that cannot leak something.
4. Turn off Dock recent apps in Desktop & Dock, so the Dock stops advertising what you were doing earlier.

Notifications during calls

Build a Meetings Focus in System Settings → Focus, allow nobody, and turn off time-sensitive notifications and badges under Options. Most video apps can turn Do Not Disturb on automatically when a meeting starts — check your calendar app's settings, and set the Focus to activate on a schedule that matches your usual meeting block as a backstop.

One more: System Settings → Notifications has a global option to allow notifications when the screen is asleep or mirroring. Turn off When mirroring or sharing the display. It is the single most valuable notification setting on a work Mac.

Camera, microphone and the two-minute check

• Open System Settings → Sound and set input and output explicitly rather than letting each app choose. Headphones connecting mid-call and stealing the output is a solved problem.
• Check Privacy & Security → Camera and Microphone and remove apps that no longer need access.
• The green dot next to the camera means it is live and cannot be faked by software. The orange dot in the menu bar means the microphone is in use. Learn both.
• Video effects such as Portrait and Centre Stage live in Control Centre → Video Effects while a call is running.

Wi-Fi that does not drop mid-sentence

Two settings help more than anything else. In System Settings → Network → Wi-Fi → Advanced, order your known networks so home is first, and remove the coffee shop networks you joined once. In the same place, turning off Ask to join hotspots stops your Mac hopping to something weaker.

If calls drop while the Mac is otherwise fine, check what else is on the connection. Backups, cloud sync and system updates all compete, and most sync tools have a bandwidth limit setting worth using.

A workspace that survives the day

Working from one screen all day makes window management the whole job. Two settings help more than any app.

# drag any window from anywhere with Control-Command held
defaults write -g NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture -bool true

# undo
defaults delete -g NSWindowShouldDragOnGesture

Log out and back in. Then set one Space per context — one for the call and the notes, one for the actual work — and turn off Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use in Desktop & Dock, so they stay in the order you put them. Swiping between two Spaces with three fingers is faster than any window layout and costs nothing.

Work that exists in more than one place

Turn on both of these and stop thinking about it:

1. Time Machine to an external drive, in General → Time Machine. Hourly, automatic.
2. iCloud Drive with Desktop & Documents, or your company's equivalent, so the current file is not only on this laptop.

They cover different failures: Time Machine gives you last week's version of a file you broke, and cloud sync gives you the file when the laptop does not come home. You want both.