# New Mac setup: set up your MacBook before it turns into your old one > Set up a new Mac or MacBook in this order: leave the old mess behind, pick one cloud for every file, keep Desktop and Downloads empty, name files by date, fix Finder, make Raycast your launcher, learn five shortcuts, set up Touch ID and the trackpad, silence notifications, and lock down passwords and backups. Plan on two hours. --- A new Mac is the only clean Mac you'll ever own. Empty Desktop. Empty Downloads. A menu bar with room to breathe. No folder called `old stuff 2`. The next two hours decide whether it stays that way, or becomes your old Mac with a faster chip. This works for whatever Apple just put on stage: MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or whatever number comes after the M this year. The chip changes every year. The setup that makes you fast doesn't. Apple's own setup guide gets you to a working Mac: language, Wi-Fi, Apple Account. This checklist picks up where it stops, with the decisions that make a MacBook setup fast for years instead of weeks. --- ## 1. Leave the mess on your old Mac Setup Assistant offers to transfer everything from your old Mac. Migration Assistant is very good at that. Too good. It brings the screenshots on your Desktop, the 2,000 files in Downloads, and all three versions of `budget-final.xlsx`. An hour later, your new Mac is your old Mac. **The verdict:** if your files already live in one cloud, signing in is the migration. Let it sync, then reinstall the apps you actually use. If your files are scattered, don't copy the scatter. Move them into one cloud on purpose, one source at a time. [The Big Move](/chapter/the-big-move) is the chapter for that job. > 💡 **Tip:** Reinstalling apps by hand is a free audit. If you don't miss an app for a month, you never needed it. --- ## 2. Pick one cloud before you save a single file **Use one cloud as the single source of truth for every file.** Two clouds means two truths. One of them is always out of date, and you find out which one at the worst possible moment. A new Mac makes this cheap. Nothing is saved anywhere yet, so the decision costs you nothing today and saves you a migration later. During setup, macOS may offer to store your Desktop and Documents in iCloud Drive. If iCloud is your one cloud, fine. If it isn't, say no, or you start your new Mac with two filing systems and zero files. **The verdict:** the Setup Kit picks Dropbox. [Dropbox vs iCloud Drive](/compare/dropbox-vs-icloud) compares the two side by side, [Choosing Your Cloud](/chapter/choosing-your-cloud) explains the full reasoning, and [Setting Up Dropbox](/chapter/setting-up-dropbox) stops your Mac from quietly saving everywhere else. --- ## 3. Keep Desktop and Downloads empty **Desktop and Downloads are temporary; nothing lives there.** Right now both are empty. Take a good look. That's the goal, permanently. The Desktop feels fast because it's always in view. Then it fills up, and your eyes learn to skip it. A pile you've stopped seeing isn't storage. It's camouflage. Downloads is a hallway, not a room. A file comes in, you use it, and then it gets filed in your cloud or deleted. **The habit:** before you close the lid, glance at the Desktop. Anything still there gets a home or gets the Trash. [How to organize your Mac desktop](/organize/mac-desktop) covers screenshots, Stacks and the rest. --- ## 4. Let file names do the sorting **File names matter more than folders: start dated files with YYYY-MM-DD and use version numbers instead of "final".** A folder tells you where a file lives. The name tells you what it is, when it happened, and where it sorts. Your first file worth keeping is probably the receipt for this Mac. Name it like you'll search for it in three years: ```plaintext Bad: Invoice_88213.pdf Good: 2026-11-18 - receipt-macbook-pro.pdf ``` Year first, then month, then day. Sort by name and every folder becomes a timeline. No date picker, no guessing. **Top-level folders are life categories, not projects.** Projects end. Your finances, your house, and your health don't. Build the top level around the parts of your life that stick around, and projects slot in underneath. Not sure what your categories are? The [folder wizard](/wizard) previews a structure for your life in four steps, free. Want to browse first? Start with the [folder structure templates](/folder-structure) and the [file naming examples](/file-naming), or read [how to organize files on Mac](/organize-files-on-mac) for the whole system on one page. --- ## 5. Make Finder show you everything Out of the box, Finder hides file extensions and shows you icons. Two bad defaults before you've opened a single file. Fix the first one once: Now `invoice.pdf` and `invoice.docx` stop pretending to be the same file. **The verdict:** icon view is for photo folders. Everything else is a list or columns. [Viewing Your Files](/chapter/viewing-your-files) shows which view to use where, how to walk a folder tree without the mouse, and the fastest preview on your Mac. --- ## 6. Replace Spotlight with Raycast on day one Turn on Siri AI and Spotlight in macOS Golden Gate wants to have a conversation. Most of the time you just want to open something. [Raycast](https://www.raycast.com/) is a launcher built for the jobs you repeat all day: opening apps, jumping to a settings pane, expanding snippets, opening sites, and digging up something you copied ten minutes ago. Give it `Cmd+Space` and turn off Spotlight's shortcut, so your hand never has to wonder which launcher it's talking to. Then try this: Type the pane name, press `Enter`, and you're in. Faster than the System Settings sidebar, every single time. **The verdict:** the free version is plenty. Coming from Alfred? [Raycast vs Alfred](/compare/raycast-vs-alfred) has the short version. [The Raycast chapter](/chapter/raycast) covers snippets, quicklinks, clipboard history, and moving windows without dragging them. --- ## 7. Learn five shortcuts, not fifty **Learn shortcut patterns once and stop reaching for the mouse.** The trackpad on a new MacBook is lovely. Use it less. Every trip to the trackpad for something the keyboard already knows costs a second and breaks your rhythm. You make that trip hundreds of times a day. Start with these five: | Shortcut | What it does | | --------------- | ------------------------------------------------ | | `Cmd+Space` | Open your launcher | | `Cmd+Tab` | Switch to another app | | `Cmd+Backtick` | Switch windows inside the same app | | `Cmd+W` | Close the tab or window (`Cmd+Q` quits the app) | | `Opt+Backspace` | Delete the last word instead of letter by letter | Use them on purpose this week. Add three more next week. The [Shortcut Reference](/chapter/shortcut-reference) is free and has a practice tool built in. Treat windows the same way: one desktop, and the app you're using gets the whole screen. Extra desktops feel tidy. In practice they're extra rooms for unfinished work. > 💡 **Tip:** Plugging the new MacBook into an external display? Decide which screen is the main one before you arrange anything. [Multi-Monitor Setup](/chapter/multi-monitor-setup) starts there. --- ## 8. Make the MacBook parts work for you A MacBook has two things a Mac mini on a desk doesn't: a fingerprint reader and a big trackpad. Set both up on day one. **Touch ID first.** Add a finger or two when Setup Assistant asks, or later in System Settings. Then locking costs nothing: one short press of the Touch ID key locks the screen, and one touch unlocks it. Make `Ctrl+Cmd+Q` a reflex every time you stand up. [The Mac lock screen shortcut](/shortcuts/lock-screen) has the details, including the setting that makes a sleeping display lock too. **Then three trackpad moves:** | Gesture | What it does | | ---------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------- | | Swipe up with three fingers | Mission Control: every window | | Spread your thumb and three fingers apart | Show the desktop | | Swipe left or right with three or four fingers | Move between full-screen apps | Turn on the Mission Control swipe if it isn't already: **And one hot corner.** Bottom-left, set to Desktop, so you can drag a file onto or off the Desktop while your app fills the screen. [Hot corners on Mac](/shortcuts/hot-corners) shows the setup and which corners to leave alone. Resist making every app full screen on a laptop screen. Fill the screen instead and stay on one desktop. [Full screen on Mac](/shortcuts/full-screen) explains the difference, and the [Mac shortcut guides](/shortcuts) cover the rest. --- ## 9. Silence your Mac before it learns to nag Day one is when new apps start asking if they may send you notifications. It's the easiest day to say no, so say no. Allow the few that need you right now: calls, messages from real people, calendar alerts, and security codes. Everything else can wait until you decide to look. Then create one Focus mode for deep work, so silence is a single click instead of a negotiation. Keep the menu bar boring too. Right now it's clean, and every app you install will lobby for a permanent spot up there. Hold `Cmd` and drag the icons you don't need out of the menu bar. Some refuse to leave. Fair enough. **The verdict:** if it doesn't need you in the next five minutes, it doesn't get to interrupt you. [Distraction Control](/chapter/distraction-control) covers Focus modes, notification triage, and menu bar cleanup. --- ## 10. Lock it down before you need to Nobody sets up passwords and backups for fun. You set them up because the alternative is finding out the hard way. Use one password manager. On a Mac, the built-in Passwords app is enough for most people, and it syncs with your iPhone. Protect your email account first. It's the account that can reset every other password, so it gets the strongest password and two-factor before anything else. Then add one independent backup. Your cloud syncs a mistake as fast as it syncs a file, so a sync service on its own is not a backup. **The verdict:** one password manager, two-factor on the accounts that matter, and a backup that doesn't depend on your cloud. [Password Management](/chapter/password-management) has the full setup. --- ## The whole checklist Tick them off as you go. Your progress stays in this browser. --- ## Quick answers ### How long does it take to set up a new Mac? About two hours for this checklist. Moving years of old files into one cloud is a separate job, so plan a weekend for that. ### Does this work for a MacBook Air or Mac mini too? Yes. Nothing here depends on the chip. It's written for macOS 27 Golden Gate, and almost all of it works on the versions before. Only step 8 is MacBook-specific: a Mac mini or iMac gets Touch ID and trackpad gestures only with an Apple keyboard or trackpad that has them. ### Is a MacBook setup different from a new Mac setup? Only in step 8. A MacBook gets Touch ID and a built-in trackpad, so locking, unlocking and gestures deserve ten minutes on day one. Everything else, from one cloud to backups, is the same on every Mac. ### Should I use Migration Assistant? Use it for apps and settings if you like. Don't use it to haul years of unsorted files onto a clean machine. If your files live in one cloud, signing in is the migration. ### What's the difference between this checklist and the Setup Kit? This page is the checklist: what to do and why. The Setup Kit is the full install: step-by-step settings, folder templates, practice tools, and the folder wizard with ZIP export. --- Apple did their part. This was yours.