12 settings to improve your Mac experience

🕹Trackpad Settings

1. Click the Apple icon () in the upper-left corner of your screen.
2. Select System Preferences… from the dropdown menu.
3. Click on Trackpad in the System Preferences window.

Point & Click Tab

Click the  Point & Click tab and select the below options:

1. Secondary Click ➡️ Click or tap with two fingers.
2. Tap to Click ➡️ Tap with one finger

Scroll & Zoom Tab

Click the  Scroll & Zoom tab and select the tick mark all the options:

1. ✅ Scroll direction: Natural
2. ✅ Zoom in or out
3. ✅ Smart Zoom
4. ✅ Rotate

More Gesture Tab

Click the More Gesture tab and select the below options:

1. ✅ Swipe between pages ➡️ Scroll left or right with two fingers
2. ✅ Swipe between full-screen app ➡️ Swipe left or right with four fingers
3. ✅ Notification Centre ➡️ Swipe left from the right edge with two fingers
4. ✅ Mission Control ➡️ Swipe up with four fingers
5. ❌ App Expose
6. ✅ Launchpad ➡️ Pinch with thumb and three fingers
7. ✅ Show Desktop ➡️ Spread with thumb and three fingers

🖱Mouse& Trackpad Dragging

1. Click the Apple icon () in the upper-left corner of your screen.
2. Select System Preferences… from the dropdown menu.
3. Click on Accessibility in the System Preferences window.
4. Now from the left side menu, select Pointer & Control
5. Now click on Mouse & Trackpad tab
6. Click on the Trackpad Options… shown at the bottom.

Now a popup comes up, select the below option:
✅ Enable dragging ➡️ three finger drag
This will allow you to drag and drop anything just with 3 finger drag.

🚥 Dock Arrangement

I like to arrange the various apps as per their category separated by an empty space in the dock as shown in the image below.

Open the terminal app and enter the following text, as many times as you wish, to add spaces: 

defaults write com.apple.dock persistent-apps -array-add '{"tile-type"="spacer-tile";}'

Force restart the Dock to make the spaces appear by entering this into Terminal:

killall Dock

To remove spaces, just drag them out of the Dock like any other icon. To move them around, click and drag.

🖥 Display (Night Mode)

Night Mode is a must if you spend hours working during late evening or night. Night Shift adjusts the color of your display after sunset. After sunset, Night Shift will shift your display colors to the warmer end of the spectrum, making the display easier on your eyes. In the morning, your display returns to its regular settings.

1. Click the Apple icon () in the upper-left corner of your screen.
2. Select System Preferences… from the dropdown menu.
3. Click on Displays in the System Preferences window.
4. Click on the last tab i.e. Night Shift

Night Shift can be manually enabled or disabled, scheduled based on time of day or sunset/sunrise, and manually adjusted to appear warmer. My preference is to enable Night Shift automatically from sunset to sunrise. 

You can also adjust the color temperature as per your convenience I personally like it around 60% warm.

🔎 Finder

Show File or Folder Path

We can enbale to see the finder to show file/folder path of current file/folder which is by default disabled.

1. Open finder.
2. Click on View in the menu bar.
3. Select the Show Path Bar option.

Show Status Bar

If we enable the status bar then it will show us : 1) No. of items 2) Size

1. Open finder.
2. Click on View in the menu bar.
3. Select the Show Status Bar option.

Search only the Current Folder

By default when you seach in the finder it will seach in the complete system so instead we can make it to search only in the current folder which we are in.

1. Open finder.
2. Open the Finder Preferences by Command+comma (⌘+,)
3. Go to the Advanced tab.
4. At the very bottom, drop-down select Search the Current Folder option.

Clear Bin automatically after 30 days

When we delete an item from finder it will be there in the bin untill you clear your bin manually. But there is an option to automatically delete a deleted item permanently from the bin.

1. Open finder.
2. Open the Finder Preferences by pressing Command+comma (⌘+,)
3. Go to the Advanced tab.
4. Tick mark ✔️ the option shown below,
   ✅ Remove items from the Bin after 30 days.

Show hidden files

1. Open finder.
2. Press Command+Shift+Dot (⌘+⇧+.) to view hidden files.
3. Repeat step 2 to hide the files back.

Change the visible icons in sidebar

1. Open finder.
2. Open the Finder Preferences by pressing Command+comma (⌘+,)
3. Go to the Sidebar tab.
4. Enable the icons which you wish to see in your Finder Sidebar.