My must-have tools and setup on a (new) Mac!

Dock

Set the dock to automatically hide & show. Then speed up the animation to have a super smooth experience:

defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -int 0
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 0
killall Dock

Homebrew

Some tools I really need and I just install via Homebrew.
Bitwarden is maybe better to install via the App Store as this is the only way to get TouchID support in the browser extensions.

### external monitor brightness control
brew install --cask monitorcontrol

### don't let the mac go to sleep
brew install --cask keepingyouawake

### clean the menu bar 
brew install jordanbaird-ice

### alt tab like under Windows
brew install --cask alt-tab

### Window Manager
brew install --cask rectangle

### bittorrent
brew install --cask transmission

### password manager
brew install --cask bitwarden

### Browser
brew install --cask google-chrome

### only if you have a Touch Bar
brew install --cask mtmr

### virtual monitor
brew install deskpad

### alternative Dropbox Sync Client
brew install --cask maestral

### NTFS Filesystem Write support
brew install --cask macfuse
brew install gromgit/fuse/ntfs-3g-mac
brew install --cask mounty

sudo via Touch ID

Create a sudo_local file and uncomment the pam_tid.so line:

sudo cp /etc/pam.d/sudo_local.template /etc/pam.d/sudo_local
sudo nano /etc/pam.d/sudo_local

--> uncomment the pam_tid.so line

set timezone manually

sudo systemsetup -settimezone Europe/Berlin

Screenshot Tool

I am using Snipaste since years and I am very happy with it. You have an editor built-in, I configured to save the screenshot right ahead and I can copy to clipboard when I am done with editing to use the screenshot right ahead.

Limit Charging (Apple Silicon Mac)

Limit Charging to 80% to increase battery life.
CLI Tool, works great: https://github.com/charlie0129/batt
If you look for a GUI: https://github.com/actuallymentor/battery

charge limit: 80%
lower limit: 78%
prevent idle-sleep when charging: false
disable charging before sleep if charge limit is enabled: false
allow non-root users to assess the daemon: true

state: UNKNOWN
full capacity: 106.5 Wh
charge rate: 0.0 W
voltage: 12.2 V

power adapter: enabled
charging: disabled

Disable Auto Boot (Apple Silicon Mac)

Disable Auto Boot – disable automatic booting when opening the lid on your MacBook.

sudo nvram AutoBoot=%00

Enable keyboard brightness controls with F5 / F6 (Apple Silicon Mac)

Create a new file

nano ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.local.KeyRemapping.plist

with the following content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.local.KeyRemapping</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/hidutil</string>
        <string>property</string>
        <string>--set</string>
        <string>{"UserKeyMapping":[
            {
              "HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc": 0xC000000CF,
              "HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst": 0xFF00000009
            },
            {
              "HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc": 0x10000009B,
              "HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst": 0xFF00000008
            }
        ]}</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

Reboot!