Personalize Mainspring

Personalizing tells Mainspring which recipes and power-ups to put in front of you. It never changes a setting by itself — it only changes what's suggested.

Open it

• It opens by itself the first time you launch Mainspring.
• Any time after that, click Personalize at the bottom of the sidebar (it reads Update preferences once you've done it), or choose Settings… from the Mainspring menu — ⌘,.

The three steps

1 · What do you do most?

“Choose any that fit — we'll tune recommendations to you.” Pick as many as you like:

2 · What matters most?

3 · Laptop or desktop?

Pick Laptop or Desktop — “so we only suggest tweaks that apply to your Mac.” On a desktop, Mainspring won't suggest laptop-only power-ups such as Show battery percentage, and the sidebar won't suggest keeping the Mac awake with the lid closed.

Move between steps with Continue and Back; the counter at the bottom shows where you are (1 / 3, 2 / 3, 3 / 3). Done saves your answers. Skip closes the sheet without choosing anything, and Mainspring treats you as “Everyone”.

What your answers change

• Home — up to four recipes that match you move to the front of the grid, and a Suggested for you list shows up to eight matching power-ups.
• The Suggested card in the sidebar can pick a recipe “Because you picked Developer · Speed.”
• The menu bar gets a For you section with the top four suggested power-ups.
• The sidebar shows “Tuned for you” with a short summary of your answers.

Matching is simple: each recipe and power-up is tagged with the kinds of people and goals it suits. A match on what you do counts twice as much as a match on what matters to you, and the best matches come first. See Suggested for you and the Suggested card.

Your answers stay on your Mac

They're saved in Mainspring's own preferences on this Mac and aren't sent anywhere.