How to Set Up a New Mac From Scratch, Properly

A new Mac is the one chance to set things up in the right order. Do it deliberately and you get a machine that feels like yours in an afternoon. Do it by accident and you spend two years wondering why an app you deleted in 2021 still launches at login.

Migrate or start clean?

Migration Assistant carries everything: apps, files, settings, and every piece of accumulated cruft. Starting clean means reinstalling apps by hand and reconfiguring things.

• Migrate if the old Mac was healthy and you have a lot of configured apps. It is the pragmatic choice for most people, and you can run it later rather than during setup.
• Start clean if the old Mac had problems, if it is several macOS versions old, or if you want to install only what you actually use. Move files across manually and reinstall apps from their current versions.

A middle route works well: start clean, then use Migration Assistant to bring across only Documents and your user files, leaving applications and system settings behind.

Security, in the first ten minutes

1. Find My Mac — System Settings → Apple Account → iCloud → Find My. Turn it on now; you cannot enable it after the machine goes missing.
2. FileVault — Privacy & Security → FileVault. On by default on recent Macs. Confirm it, and store the recovery key somewhere other than the Mac.
3. Login password — a real one, not four characters. Add Touch ID for convenience afterwards.
4. Lock Screen → require password immediately after the screen saver begins.

The settings pass

Do these in one sitting, by area, so you remember what you changed:

# Finder: extensions, path bar via the View menu, folder sorting
defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleShowAllExtensions -bool true
defaults write com.apple.finder _FXSortFoldersFirst -bool true

# keyboard: fast repeat
defaults write NSGlobalDomain KeyRepeat -int 2
defaults write NSGlobalDomain InitialKeyRepeat -int 15

# dock: instant auto-hide, no recents, no bouncing
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 0
defaults write com.apple.dock show-recents -bool false
defaults write com.apple.dock no-bouncing -bool true

# screenshots: no shadow, own folder
defaults write com.apple.screencapture disable-shadow -bool true
mkdir -p ~/Pictures/Screenshots
defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Pictures/Screenshots

killall Finder; killall Dock; killall SystemUIServer

Every one of these reverses with defaults delete on the same key. Keep the list; it is your setup script for the next Mac.

Privacy, before apps start asking

Turn off Personalised Ads and Analytics & Improvements in Privacy & Security, and go through Location Services while the list is still short. Doing this on day one is much easier than auditing thirty apps in a year.

Backups, before you have anything to lose

Plug in an external drive and turn on Time Machine. Turn on iCloud Drive with Desktop and Documents if that suits how you work. Ten minutes now, and the question "did I back that up" never comes up again.

What to check on day two

Some things only surface once the Mac has been used for a day. Come back to these:

1. General → Login Items. Everything you installed has added itself. Remove what you do not need at boot, and look at Allow in the Background underneath.
2. Notifications. Every new app asked, and you probably said yes. Go through the list and turn off badges for anything that is not urgent.
3. Privacy & Security. Check what asked for Camera, Microphone, Screen Recording and Full Disk Access, and remove anything that does not need it.
4. Storage. Migration Assistant often brings across more than you expected. General → Storage shows where it went.

Install apps deliberately

Resist reinstalling everything from the old Mac. Install what you need this week, and add the rest when you actually reach for it. Two weeks later you will have a shorter list than you expected, a faster login, and a menu bar that fits on the screen.

If it is an M-series machine

The order above holds for any Mac. Our new M5 Mac setup checklist adds the parts specific to the current generation.