Getting started with Mainspring

Mainspring puts the Mac settings Apple hides — and plenty it doesn't — behind one-click switches you can always undo. This guide takes you from download to your first change.

What you need

A Mac running macOS 13 Ventura or later. Mainspring is signed and notarized by Apple.

Install it

1. Download Mainspring.pkg from trymainspring.com.
2. Open the file and follow the macOS installer. macOS asks for your password to install it.
3. When the installer finishes, Mainspring opens by itself.

The installer puts Mainspring in your Applications folder and also sets up a small helper that runs in the background. The helper is what lets Mainspring change system-wide settings — the power settings marked ADMIN, the network tools and the lock-screen message — without asking for your password each time. Everything else Mainspring changes is an ordinary setting in your own user account.

Your free trial

The trial starts the first time you open Mainspring and lasts one day, with everything unlocked. While it runs, a strip across the top of the window reads Free trial — 1 day left, with an Unlock — $29 button beside it. See Free trial, buying and activating for what happens next.

Tell Mainspring about yourself

On first launch a short sheet asks three questions: what you do most, what matters most, and whether you use a laptop or a desktop. Your answers only change what Mainspring suggests — they never change a setting on your Mac. Press Skip if you'd rather not answer. You can redo it any time; see Personalize Mainspring.

Make your first change

1. Click Home in the sidebar. Under Tune your Mac is a grid of recipe cards — bundles of related power-ups.
2. Find Screenshot Studio and click its Apply button. It turns solid and reads Applied.
3. Take a screenshot of a window — press ⇧⌘4, then Space, then click a window. It's saved with no drop shadow, as a JPG, and without the floating thumbnail.
4. Changed your mind? Hover over Applied — it becomes Revert. Click it and your previous screenshot settings come back.

Where to go next

• A tour of the main window — what every part of the sidebar and top bar does.
• Browse all — every power-up, one switch at a time.
• The menu bar panel — Mainspring lives in your menu bar too.