MacOS Recommendations

• General setup
  • nix-darwin (probably using “flakes”)
    • A rabbit hole in case you want to setup your mac using a declarative config.
    • This includes both managing your macOS settings and declarative package management (e.g., with nixpkgs and/or homebrew).
  • Package manager
    • Mac App Store
    • Homebrew (AFAIK the de-facto standard package manager)
    • Nix
    • MacPorts (in the odd scenario you need it)
• Terminal
  • iTerm2 if you want more features from your terminal app.
  • Of course here you can also consider (not necessarily macOS only) dotfiles, shell, etc. (e.g., zsh with ohmyzsh, fzf, zoxide (smarter cd), …)
• Programs
  • Raycast - More feature packed Spotlight (application launcher) replacement.
    • Has extensions that speed up your workflow, e.g., integration with Obsidian, quick translate, integrations with to-do managers.
    • Built-in parsing of expressions is quite handy (120 bytes to KiB, time in new york, days until october 21).
    • Clipboard history.
    • Can add custom scripts that can be quickly launched.
  • AltTab - Much improved alt-tab switcher.
  • rectangle - Window management shortcuts.
  • Espanso - Text expander. E.g., to quickly insert the current date, or symbols.
  • monitorcontrol