Config (macOS / iOS)

Apps/CLIs/configs I use on macOS/iOS. Fish, Karabiner, Cursor..

Dark appearance. All apps are in one desktop since there is delay in switching between macOS multiple desktops. Dock is hidden.

Light appearance. Use light themes when outside or when there is glare from the sun as it makes text more readable.

iOS screens. All described in detail below.

• Replicate macOS setup
• macOS Apps
• macOS CLIs
• macOS Config
• iOS Apps
• iOS Widgets
• iOS Shortcuts
• iOS Control Center
• Discuss macOS/iOS
• Contribute

Replicate macOS setup

This lists all settings I use on macOS.

See .flox repo as it lists my global env setup for all executables/daemons I run.

There is currently no automated way to replicate below setup so you would have to manually download apps, symlink configs etc.

macOS Apps

This shows all apps I have in my /Applications. Below is description of apps I do use:

• Karabiner is core tool I use to remap my keyboard. It's the tool on which my entire mac workflow is built. All keys on my keyboard are dual purpose keys. Press once, it enters the key, hold together with another key and do custom action. I have 100's of these custom actions all within 1 second of activation for me. i.e. a+w is control+w or w+k opens Safari. See karabiner/karabiner.edn for config.
• Alfred / Raycast for everything search related.
• Keyboard Maestro for all automation needs that are not search related. Both Alfred/Raycast and KM are activated from Karabiner directly. I share all my KM macros here. One example of KM macro is using AppleScript to switch between light/dark macOS appearances. As appearances are switched, the themes get updated accordingly on most apps.
• BetterTouchTool for custom trackpad gestures. Specifically love three finger swipe left/right to move between tabs in Safari. Three finger swipe up to create new tab. Three down to close. Four finger swipe global swipe to show Safari. Four to right to open Cursor. Four left to open Warp.
• Fantastical to manage my calendar and events.
• CleanShot for quick editing of screenshots/screencasts.
• Transmission for downloading torrents.
• 1Password to keep all passwords and secret info. I prefer to use Passkeys or Single Sign On via GitHub/Google.
• Cursor as my main code editor. Use many VSCode extensions with it. Keep my UI minimal and useful.
• Sublime Merge as visual Git client. It gives nice overview of files changed, what branches exist and more. I have custom actions bound to go through Git tasks fast.
• Warp as primary terminal together with Fish Shell. I also use Ghostty as side terminal for background servers and things.
• Dash to search APIs fast.
• Xcode Beta to write swift code.
• Telegram as my main messenger. Love its stickers, speed and simplicity.
• Discord as main way to interact with various communities.
• Spark as my email client. Does good job of sorting mail and getting out of my way when writing/replying to things.
• Figma as my primary design tool.
• Rive to do animations
• Spotify to stream all my music. Keep all my liked songs in a playlist.
• IINA to play video files of movies/series.
• Reflect to write/search notes and my daily journal + tasks
• Linear to make/check on issues across different teams (I power all GitHub issues of mine through Linear, all in one workspace)
• SnippetsLab for snippets
• Bike for thinking through tasks (outlining subtasks fast)
• Yaak for testing out HTTP requests
• GoLand preferred editor for Go code together with Cursor
• Safari as main browser for everything.
• Google Chrome Canary for web development as its dev tools are superior to Safari.
• Safari Technology Preview as browser for my X/Bluesky feeds and sometimes dev.

macOS CLIs

Mostly use Flox, Brew, Bun global packages for global executables.

macOS Config

All config files are part of this repo and they are symlinked from their original places into ~/src/config/...

This include configs for fish, karabiner and more.

iOS Apps

I minimize push notifications to nearly only messaging apps (Telegram/Discord/..). I also keep it nearly always on Do Not Disturb mode. Especially when I work on my mac and keep the phone on the side so as to not duplicate notifications.

Apps are listed in order they appear in each of the screens.

• Fantastical widget to see today's events, I tap on widget to open app itself to make/search events or see full week/month view of events
• Things widget to see today's tasks, I tap on widget to open app itself to make/search todos or see other todos for today
• Wikipedia to read some articles or see nearby places in wikipedia
• Google Maps for navigating/searching the world, saving lists of places I want to visit and places I loved seeing
• Bluesky to read/write posts
• Spark to check on email, don't have notifications set for emails
• Mercury to transfer money from my main business/personal US banks
• Photos to see/search photos I took and saved, love its memories feature
• Reddit to read/make new posts or check on subreddits
• Instagram to share photos/videos in form of stories/posts (mostly posts)
• GitHub to make/check on issues/PRs or search for repos
• Linear to make/check on issues across different teams (I power all GitHub issues of mine through Linear, all in one workspace)
• X to read/make posts, search and private messages
• Reflect to write/search notes and my daily journal + tasks
• Slack to read messages from servers I am in
• Spotify to stream all my music and some occasional podcasts/books (prefer Overcast for podcasts)
• Telegram as my main messenger for private messages/groups + see some channels and use mini apps (use it to transfer TON as payment too)
• Discord to read messages from servers I am in + private messages
• Perplexity to make search queries that need some computed answers
• ChatGPT to ask questions, prefer Claude for general textual queries and real time voice in ChatGPT + O1 thinking model for bigger questions
• Safari for all web browsing, keep top sites in new tab bookmarks for fast access
• Claude to ask questions (goto AI model for questions)
• Photos widget with memories cycled, love seeing what Apple decides to surface from the library, often its nice memories
• Things Upcoming widget to see upcoming tasks, open it to enter new upcoming task or edit existing ones
• Skyscanner to search for flight tickets
• Booking to search for hotels to stay in
• Airbnb to search for rooms/places to stay in, sometimes use its experiences curation too
• Glass to see photos from some dedicated photographers without ads
• Warpcast too see/make posts in Farcaster
• Mastodon to read/make posts
• Wise to transfer money from my main personal EU bank
• Cosmos to see/makke/save new visual posts
• VSCO to edit photos
• CapCut to edit videos
• Pinterest to see posts and organise them into collections
• YouTube to see/search videos
• Airchat to talk with voice on voice only social network
• Threads to see/post visual content
• TikTok to see curated feed of videos
• Settings to check on some settings like WiFi
• Flighty widget to see upcoming flights, clicking on widget lets me enter a new flight (if it doesn't get picked up from email automatically)
• Fitness app to check on activity ring goals, how many steps I took and other activities
• Etsy to buy some items from marketplace
• Amazon to buy some items from marketplace
• Stripe to check on incoming transactions or other details
• Twitch to see past/live streams
• Proxyman to debug/inspect network traffic on phone (useful for learning how apps work)
• TestFlight to see app updates from apps I am currently testing
• VK to see posts
• LinkedIn to see posts or reply/send messages
• Kinopoisk to see movie/series reviews
• Goodreads to see book reviews
• Messages to see/reply to messages sent to me (don't use it as main messenger)
• WhatsApp to see/reply to messages sent to me (don't use it as main messenger)
• FilmNoir to track movies/series I saw on Trakt
• SnipKey to add new snippets so I can then quickly enter them from special SnipKey keyboard in all text inputs
• Jupiter to swap some Solana assets fast
• Element X to see some/reply to messages from groups I am in
• Streaks widget to see my habits progress at glance or tap on it to see it in detail or mark habits as done
• Weather widget to see current weather fast or tap on it to see detailed forecast for the day/week
• Trading 212 to buy/sell stocks/ETFs
• Tonkeeper to send or check on TON transactions or use it to connect to TON dApps
• Sui Wallet to send or check on Sui transactions or use it to connect to Sui dApps
• Solflare to send or check on Solana transactions or use it to connect to Solana dApps
• Google Meet to join/create video meetings
• WebSSH to SSH connect to my servers on the go and run some commands
• Figma to check on designs on the go
• Letterboxd to track movies I saw or want see and check on reviews
• Play 2 to prototype out designs for mobile
• 1Password to search for all private things (passwords/notes/..)
• App Store to search for apps and trigger app updates manually
• Reader to read articles from RSS feed mostly
• Notion to see/make pages made in workspaces
• Luma to track events I am making or want to attend
• Files to search for files in my cloud (mostly ~/Documents or what's in ~/Desktop)
• Anybox to check on links I added, use it's share sheet to bookmark things a lot (my fast ingest system from across iOS)

Apps that are not on 4 screens but I still use are:

• Wipr 2 as my main ad blocker
• Svadilfari for custom gestures in Safari
• Audible to listen to audio books (opened from shortcut)
• Overcast to listen to podcasts, I love its smart speed feature to cut out on silent pauses (opened from shortcut)
• Tailscale to connect to my exit node server that I use as my VPN in places I need a VPN
• Qewie to create/share QR codes

iOS Widgets

I use 3 widgets in lock screen.

• Show upcoming event with Fantastical (on tap opens app)
• Overcast play current playlist (on tap opens app)
• Create new task with Things on tap

The 2 action buttons on bottom in lock screen are create voice recording and open ChatGPT.

I keep common shortcut actions as widgets on the side (scroll left from lock screen or first home screen to access):

iOS Shortcuts

I mapped the action button to run Quick Note shortcut.

I color all shortcuts I use with gray color for consistency.

• Shortcuts opens Shortcuts app (so I can fast edit/search shortcuts)
• Translate opens Google Translate app (for fast translates of camera or text)
• Draw opens Freeform app (for fast sketching/drawing on the go)
• Phone opens Phone app (for searching, making new contacts or entering a phone number)
• Places opens list of options like Parks/Restaurants/Cafes and on tap opens search for them in Google Maps
• Ask opens Google Voice (nice to ask questions that needs the Google know how, usually I ask ChatGPT voice)
• Workout opens Caliber app to start or view past workouts
• Lens opens Google Lens (to know what camera is point at or what the image represents)
• Ride/Food opens Uber app (to request food or ride)
• Photo opens Camera app to quickly take photo/video
• Overcast - instantly start playing the current podcast on my feed
• Tab - opens new tab in Safari
• Audible opens Audible app to listen to audiobooks
• Voice starts voice conversation with ChatGPT
• Recordings opens Voice Memos (to check on recordings I made)
• Listen opens ElevenReader to listen to books/texts

I use Test shortcut to prototype new actions/ideas quickly. I then duplicate the working prototype & give it appropriate name. I use the same prototyping idea with KM macros.

iOS Control Center

Here is how my control center looks:

Discuss macOS/iOS

I made a Telegram group to discuss all things macOS/iOS. Karabiner related questions can be asked here.

And I have a personal Discord where you can for ask questions about this repo and others.

Contribute

Whilst this is a personal config/setup, I am always open to useful suggestions/ideas.

Can open new issue (search existing ones for duplicates first) or start discussion on GitHub or Discord.