The Next 5 Things to Do After Starting Up Your New Mac

Hopefully you've already read our 5 Things to Do After Starting Up Your New Mac article and are now ready for the next 5 steps. If not, click over and give it a quick read. These tips should help you optimize your new Mac while smoothing out the process of getting acquainted with it.

Pre-Start Bonus: Custom Installation

This is really something to do before the original 5 Tips. To make your Mac experience as smooth as possible, Apple has included many items in your Mac that will probably never get used by you. Unfortunately, those files take up a lot of room on your hard drive. If you expect to use up your hard drive in time, you can get rid of those files right off the bat by doing a custom install before beginning to use your Mac. It should save you many GBs of space.

To do a custom install, find the dvd that shipped with your Mac and pop it in and follow the directions. Go ahead with Erase and Install if you haven't done anything with your new Mac and wiping it clean won't do any harm. Then, look for the Customize button on the Install Summary screen. this will lead to a screen where you can uncheck all the things you won't be needing. I suggest unchecking Printer Drivers, Language Translations and Additional Fonts. After getting your Mac up and running, download any printer drivers you need directly from the manufacturer's website for the latest version. BTW, you can always add the items you left out at a later date.

OK, Let's start back up with #6…

6. Create a User Account

Many people recommend that everyday Mac use be run under a user account rather than an administrator account. The reason for the user account is that it is very hard to do something bad to your Mac inadvertently. When you operate a user account, your Mac will ask for the Administrator name and password to do anything significant to the system. It can be annoying but it will give you an added layer of protection. To add users accounts to your Mac, go to System Preferences>Accounts and click the + button in the lower left. You may need to click and unlock the padlock icon below it to have access.

7. Create a Backup System

Speaking of protection… Now is the time to devise a backup system. You need to plan for when you make mistakes or your hard drive quits on you. Both will happen. It's just a matter of time. Fortunately, Apple makes it really easy by using Time Machine. You can add an Apple Time Capsule as your wireless base station if you need one, or just go buy an external hard drive 1.5x the size of your internal one. Mac Pro users have extra internal drive bays which are even easier. Just plug in the drive and go to System Preferences>Time Machine to get your backup system hooked up.

Extra Tip for laptop users: portable hard drive prices are plummeting. Get good ones at Costco for under $100. They are small and have only one cord.

8. Set Up Your Email

Now's the time to figure out what you will be using for email. The Mail app that comes with your Mac is pretty good. It's even better with the WideMail plugin. If you are using web mail like Gmail, you won't need to do anything. But even Gmail will work with Apple's Mail app making for a nice combination. See here for details. See MFM's What Email Program or Service Should I Use? for more on choosing an email system.

9. Customize the Dock and Finder Windows

We covered moving the Dock in #2, but you should also take the time to customize the Dock too. The Dock is made up of shortcuts to favorite applications, folders and files. They aren't the files themselves, so you can just drag the icons on and off your Dock without changing them.

Apple preloads you dock with shortcuts that they think you will like, but you should determine that for yourself. I suggest going through the Dock and getting rid of them all and just keeping apps, folders and files you want fast access to. When an app opens and appears in the dock, just right-click on it and select Keep in Dock. Alternately, just drag icons on and off the Dock as desired.

The same goes for the Finder Windows. Make them yours. See Get Productive By Customizing Your Finder Windows for more. OK, that was really 2 tips. Sosumi.

10. Calibrate Your Display

Calibrating your display will make your life easier if color and value is important while working on your Mac. It will also just make your display easier on your eyes. If your display is off, you'll be very glad you corrected it. What you do is save diplay profiles and select from them as desired In System Preferences. Check out a video walk through of it here on YouTube.


Finally, be sure to check out our Getting Started and Mastering the Mac articles for many more tips on getting your new Mac up and optimzed right away.

Do you have some fo your own suggestions? Let us know in the Comments section below!

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Your Comments:

This site is great-- I'm switching our PC house to a multi MAC house over the next couple weeks and this looks like the ideal website to help us through!
One thing-- at the top of this article, when I click on the link for the original "5 things to do" article, it just takes me back to this one again, and I want to start with the very first steps. THanks

Editor: Thanks, we fixed it.

 Mitch W
 12/19/2008  at  03:10 PM

how do i remove. dripping apple, screensaver! from my macbook. and go back to the original setup.. thank you

 J.J.
 01/22/2009  at  08:14 AM

I just got my first MacBook Pro but I have been reading your articles here even before I placed the order. I plan on following the steps on "5 things to do..." but I obviously have to have a printed copy of the article. That's when I realized your "print page" link at the bottom of the article prints the entire page, which makes the article almost unreadable (too small). I wonder if there's a way you can provide the option like "printable format"... Just a thought. Thanks for a great SOURCE OF HELP for "Mac Switchers"!

 RonRod
 06/22/2009  at  02:12 PM

thank you so much for all your information! i have been researching various tutorial about the different features of the mac os X system but your website is from far the best!

Thank you very much!

PS: for all the people that are still hesitating, MAC IS THE BEST!

 Fabien
 05/26/2010  at  11:32 AM

I really love this website.
I started reading it before I got my first Macbook. I'm really excited about using it now knowing that I have access to solid information that will help me adjust to my new Mac.
I have a question regarding the custom installation though.
When I bought my Macbook, it came with two CDs, one for the applications installation and the other of the Mac OS X Installtion.
Which one should I use to perform the custom installation?
Thanks a lot of in advance!

 Sarah
 08/12/2010  at  02:22 PM

Sarah, Use the OSX install for customization. Just click through when ever there is a "more" or "options" to see what your options are when installing. Most people will not need a custom install.

 Chris Kerins
 08/12/2010  at  02:26 PM

Ok. Thanks Chris!

 Sarah
 08/12/2010  at  02:41 PM