Technologies

You Need to Try These 17 Essential MacBook Settings Right Now

Customize your MacBook by following these tips during or after setup.

This story is part of 12 Days of Tips, helping you make the most of your tech, home and health during the holiday season.

With the new year just around the corner, it’s a great time to clean up your MacBook and get it running at its best. Or maybe you’ve got a pristine new MacBook and want to explore all it has to offer. Either way, no laptop comes straight out of the box optimized for maximum performance — even one with an Apple logo.

No matter if you have a new MacBook like the M2 MacBook Air or an M2 MacBook Pro, own an earlier M1 MacBook Air or Pro, or you have an older Intel-based MacBook, there are things you can do to improve the experience. A handful of tweaks, tips and fixes you should do on Day 1 or Day 101 that go beyond your default MacBook settings. I’ve put together some of my personal favorites here that will make your device easier to use.

So, after you’ve jumped through the initial screens from the Mac Setup Assistant that had you log in with your Apple ID, connect to a network and so on, consider changing these settings, or at least check them out, on your MacBook. This list is sure to grow, too, now that Apple’s latest desktop OS, MacOS Ventura, has arrived.

Check for updates

Has Apple released an update to MacOS since it built your MacBook? Find out by clicking the Apple button in the upper-left corner of your screen and then clicking About This Mac. You should be staring at the General tab of the About This Mac window. If so, click the Software Update button, which will launch the System Preferences to check for updates.

Optimize battery charging

If your MacBook is going to spend most of its time plugged in, you’ll definitely want to change this setting. MacOS can learn your charging habits to reduce battery aging. Click on the battery icon on the menu bar at the top of your display and select Battery Preferences from the drop-down menu. (If you don’t see a battery icon, go to System Preferences > Energy Saver and check the box for Show battery status in menu bar.) At the bottom of the list of options, select Optimized battery charging. This will slow down your charging once the battery hits 80%.

Set up Siri

Siri should be enabled by default, but if you would prefer to use Siri only on your iPhone, then you can disable Siri by going to System Preferences > Siri and unchecking the box for Enable Ask Siri. If you plan on using Siri frequently, then you can use this Siri window to choose Siri’s voice, language and a keyboard shortcut.

Customize the Touch Bar

If you have one of the last remaining Intel-based MacBook Pro or 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro models with the Touch Bar, then head to System Preferences > Keyboard and click the Customize Touch Bar button and then simply drag the buttons you want to show up on the default view of the Touch Bar to the Touch Bar below the display. Don’t worry, they’ll make the leap from your display across the hinge and to the Touch Bar.

Sync folders via iCloud

I find it incredibly useful to sync the Desktop and Documents folders between my two Macs and my iOS devices. To sync these two folders, go to System Preferences > Apple ID and click iCloud in the left column and check the box next to iCloud Drive. Click Options next to iCloud Drive and select Desktop and Documents folders.

Choose default browser

Even though it uses more system resources than Safari, I use Chrome instead of Safari because the favicons help me keep track of all of my open tabs. To set a default browser, go to System Preferences > General and make a selection other than Safari for Default web browser.

Set scrolling direction

A MacBook’s «natural» scrolling direction doesn’t feel natural to me. If you want the two-finger swipe gesture to scroll vertically in the opposite way, head to System Preferences > Trackpad and click on the Scroll & Zoom tab. Next, uncheck the box for Scroll direction: Natural.

Add and remove items from Dock

Apple throws a number of stock apps into the Dock at the bottom of the screen. You can make room for the apps you use most frequently by removing others you don’t need in the Dock. To remove an app from the Dock, simply click on its icon in the Dock and drag it to the desktop until you see Remove appear above the icon and then let go. Poof, it’s gone! To add an app to the Dock, open it and then right-click on its icon in the Dock and mouse over the Option line in the menu and click Keep in Dock.

Move the Dock

The Dock sits at the bottom of your screen, but on a widescreen MacBook display, you might find it better to have it on the side. To move the Dock, go to System Preferences > Dock & Menu Bar and choose either Left or Right for Position on Screen. While you’re there, you can also drag a slider to adjust the size of the Dock. You can also make it disappear from view when you aren’t using it by checking the box for Automatically hide and show the Dock.

Show battery percentage

Like an iPhone, a MacBook displays a small battery icon at the top of the display to show how much battery power remains. It’s more helpful if next to this icon the percentage of battery you have left is also displayed. To show the percentage, go to System Preferences > Dock & Menu Bar and choose Battery from the left column. Check the box next to Show Percentage and it should instantly appear next to the battery icon on the Menu Bar.

Stop auto-play videos

Safari now combats two of the bigger internet annoyances: autoplay videos and ad trackers. Ad tracking is stopped by default, but there is a global setting for stopping autoplay videos that you’ll want to enable. Open Safari’s Preferences and click on the Websites tab. Choose Auto-Play from the left panel and for When visiting other websites at the bottom of the window, select Never Auto-Play or Stop Media with Sound (if you are OK with muted videos playing) and sit back and rejoice in the silence.

Work the Night Shift

Staring at a blue-light screen before bed can shift your body’s natural clock and make it difficult to get a good night’s sleep. With Apple’s Night Shift feature, the colors of your display are shifted to the warmer end of the spectrum during the evening hours. Head to System Preferences > Displays and click the Night Shift tab. You can set Night Shift to come on from sunset to sunrise, or you can select a custom time period. Use the slider to adjust the color temperature of the effect between less warm and more. Once you start using Night Shift, you’ll wonder how you ever sat in front of a cold, blue screen in the evening hours.

Make your desktop dynamic

With MacOS Mojave, Apple introduced a dynamic wallpaper that slowly changes its lighting throughout the day, going from a bright, sunny desert scene during the day and transitioning to a cool, dark screen at night. You can find it by going to System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver. While Mojave started out with just two dynamic wallpapers — Mojave and Solar Gradients — there are now several to choose from and sites where you can download more.

Try out dark mode

MacOS Mojave also delivered an honest-to-goodness dark mode for Macs. Go to System Preferences > General and you’ll see the Light and Dark options at the top for Appearance. On most apps, dark mode turns the background black and text white. Want to use both Light and Dark options? Select Auto and buttons, menus and windows will change throughout the day.

Set hours for Do Not Disturb

Along with overly blue screens, notifications have no place in my home after a certain hour. As with iOS, MacOS lets you disable notifications in the evening so you aren’t disturbed while watching Netflix or sleeping. Go to System Preferences > Notifications and check the box Turn on Do Not Disturb. By default, it’s set for the hours of 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. but you can set your own Do Not Disturb Window. There are options to enable the feature when your MacBook’s display is sleeping or when you are mirroring the display to a TV or projector (and presumably watching a movie or show or video). You can also let calls come through (if you use your MacBook to answer calls) or just repeated calls, which might mean there is an emergency or something urgent to which you may need to respond.

Set app download tolerance level

If you want to download apps from the web at large and not just from the Mac App Store, you’ll need to tell MacOS to loosen up on the reins a bit. Go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy, click the General tab and then click the lock in the lower-left corner and enter your password to make changes. Next, for Allow apps downloaded from, choose App Store and identified developers.

More from 12 Days of Tips

Choose how quickly your MacBook locks

While on the Security & Privacy page, you can set the length of time your MacBook can sit idle before the screen locks. It’s more convenient to set a longer time but also less secure. The time period to set here doesn’t start ticking until the screen saver begins, so you also need to set the length of time before your screen saver kicks in. Go to System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver and you can select the style of your screen saver and also the time by using the drop-down menu at the top of the window.

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Apple, I’m (Sky) Blue About Your iPhone 17 Air Color

Commentary: The rumored new hue of the iPhone 17 Air is more sky blah than sky blue.

I can’t help but feel blue about the latest rumor that Apple’s forthcoming iPhone 17 Air will take flight in a subtle, light-hued color called sky blue.

Sky blue isn’t a new color for Apple. It’s the featured shade of the current M4 MacBook Air, a shimmer of cerulean so subtle as to almost be missed. It’s silver left too close to an aquarium; silver that secretly likes to think it’s blue but doesn’t want everyone else to notice.

Do Apple employees get to go outside and see a real blue sky? It’s actually vivid, you can check for yourself. Perhaps the muted sky blue color reflects a Bay Area late winter/early spring frequent layer of clouds like we typically see here in Seattle.

«Who cares?» you might find yourself saying. «Everyone gets a case anyway.» I hear you and everyone else who’s told me that. But design-focused Apple is as obsessive about colors as they are about making their devices thinner. And I wonder if their heads are in the clouds about which hues adorn their pro products.

Making the case for a caseless color iPhone

I’m more invested in this conversation than most — I’m one of those freaks who doesn’t wrap my phone in a case. I find cases bulky and superfluous, and I like to be able to see Apple’s design work. Also, true story, I’ve broken my iPhone screen only twice: First when it was in a «bumper» that Apple sent free in response to the iPhone 4 you’re-holding-it-wrong Antennagate fiasco, and second when trying to take long exposure starry night photos using what I didn’t realize was a broken tripod mount. My one-week-old iPhone 13 Pro slipped sideways and landed screen-first on a pointy rock. A case wouldn’t have saved it.

My current model is an iPhone 16 Pro in black titanium — which I know seems like avoiding color entirely — but previously I’ve gone for colors like blue titanium and deep purple. I wanted to like deep purple the most but it came across as, in the words of Patrick Holland in his iPhone 14 Pro review, «a drab shade of gray or like Grimace purple,» depending on the light.

Pros can be bold, too

Maybe the issue is too many soft blues. Since the iPhone Pro age began with the iPhone 11 Pro, we’ve seen variations like blue titanium (iPhone 15 Pro), sierra blue (iPhone 13 Pro) and pacific blue (iPhone 12 Pro).

Pacific blue is the boldest of the bunch, if by bold you mean dark enough to discern from silver, but it’s also close enough to that year’s graphite color that seeing blue depends on the surrounding lighting. By comparison, the blue (just «blue») color of the iPhone 12 was unmistakably bright blue.

In fact, the non-Pro lines have embraced vibrant colors. It’s as if Apple is equating «pro» with «sophisticated,» as in «A real pro would never brandish something this garish.» I see this in the camera world all the time: If it’s not all-black, it’s not a «serious» camera.

And yet I know lots of pros who are not sophisticated — proudly so. People choose colors to express themselves, so forcing that idea of professionalism through color feels needlessly restrictive. A bright pink iPhone 16 might make you smile every time you pick it up but then frown because it doesn’t have a telephoto camera.

Color is also important because it can sway a purchase decision. «I would buy a sky blue iPhone yesterday,» my colleague Gael Cooper texted after the first rumor popped online. When each new generation of iPhones arrive, less technically different than the one before, a color you fall in love with can push you into trading in your perfectly-capable model for a new one.

And lest you think Apple should just stick with black and white for its professional phones: Do you mean black, jet black, space black, midnight black, black titanium, graphite or space gray? At least the lighter end of the spectrum has stuck to just white, white titanium and silver over the years.

Apple never got ahead by being beige

I’m sure Apple has reams of studies and customer feedback that support which colors make it to production each year. Like I said, Apple’s designers are obsessive (in a good way). And I must remind myself that a sky blue iPhone 17 Air is a rumored color on a rumored product so all the usual caveats apply.

But we’re talking about Apple here. The scrappy startup that spent more than any other company on business cards at the time because each one included the old six-color Apple logo. The company that not only shaped the first iMac like a tipped-over gumdrop, that not only made the case partially see-through but then made that cover brilliant Bondi blue.

Embrace the iPhone colors, Apple.

If that makes you nervous, don’t worry: Most people will put a case on it anyway.

Technologies

Astronomers Say There’s an Increased Possibility of Life on This Distant Planet

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers are working to confirm potential evidence of life on a distant exoplanet dubbed K2-18b.

Astronomers are nearing a statistically significant finding that could confirm the potential signs of life detected on the distant exoplanet K2-18b are no accident.

The team of astronomers, led by the University of Cambridge, used data from the James Webb Space Telescope (which has only been in use since the end of 2021) to detect chemical traces of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and/or dimethyl disulfide (DMDS), which they say can only be produced by life such as phytoplankton in the sea.

According to the university, «the results are the strongest evidence yet that life may exist on a planet outside our solar system.»

The findings were published this week in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and point to the possibility of an ocean on this planet’s surface, which scientists have been hoping to discover for years. In the abstract for the paper, the team says, «The possibility of hycean worlds, with planet-wide oceans and H2-rich atmospheres, significantly expands and accelerates the search for habitable environments elsewhere.»

Not everyone agrees, however, that what the team found proves there’s life on the exoplanet.

Science writer and OpenMind Magazine founder Corey S. Powell posted about the findings on Bluesky, writing, «The potential discovery of alien life is so enticing that it drags even reputable outlets into running naive or outright misleading stories.» He added, «Here we go again with planet K2-18b.Um….there’s strong evidence of non-biological sources of the molecule DMS.»

K2-18b is 124 light-years away and much larger than Earth (more than eight times our mass), but smaller than Neptune. The search for signs of even basic life on a planet like this increases the chances that there are more planets like Earth that may be inhabitable, with temperatures and atmospheres that could sustain human-like lifeforms. The team behind the paper hopes that more study with the James Webb Space Telescope will help confirm their initial findings.

More research to do on finding life on K2-18b

The exoplanet K2-18b is not the only place where scientists are exploring the possibility of life, and this research is still an early step in the process, said Christopher Glein, a geochemist, planetary researcher and lead scientist at San Antonio’s Southwest Research Institute. Excitement over the significance of the research, he said, should be tempered.

«We need to be careful here,» Glein said. «It appears that there is something in the data that can’t be explained, and DMS/DMDS can provide an explanation. But this detection is stretching the limits of JWST’s capabilities.»

Glein added, «Further work is needed to test whether these molecules are actually present. We also need complementary research assessing the abiotic background on K2-18b and similar planets. That is, the chemistry that can occur in the absence of life in this potentially exotic environment. We might be seeing evidence of some cool chemistry rather than life.»

The TRAPPIST-1 planets, he said, are being researched as potentially habitable, as is LHS 1140b, which he said «is another astrobiologically significant exoplanet, which might be a massive ocean world.»

As for K2-18b, Glein said many more tests need to be performed before there’s consensus on life existing on it.

«Finding evidence of life is like prosecuting a case in the courtroom,» Glein said. «Multiple independent lines of evidence are needed to convince the jury, in this case the worldwide scientific community.» He added, «If this finding holds up, then that’s Step 1.»