Software
Software
macOS software worth installing — 185 tools across 20 categories.
Before anything else
Xcode Command Line Tools
xcode-select --installA compiler, git and the headers Homebrew builds against. The full Xcode install is only needed for building apps.
Homebrew
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"Then follow the instructions it prints to put brew on PATH — on Apple Silicon, eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)" in your shell profile.
A set of Homebrew choices can be captured and replayed on the next machine:
brew bundle dump --describe # write a Brewfile from what is installed
brew bundle install # install everything a Brewfile listsCategories
Local model runners and on-device speech tools.
Bootable clones, versioned snapshots and disk images.
Three browsers, a content blocker, and a crawler for auditing sites.
Vector editing, image optimisation and colour picking.
Editors, AI coding agents, and the clients that sit open beside them.
Finding what filled the disk, uninstalling properly, and making installer media.
Archivers, compression tools, NTFS support and cloud sync.
Monospaced coding fonts, mostly Nerd Font patched.
Keyboard remapping, mouse behaviour, menu bar control and keep-awake.
Language toolchains, package managers, containers and the tools that build and check a project.
Editing, screen capture and recording, transcoding, downloading and playback.
VPNs, mesh networking, remote desktops, file transfer, torrents and cable diagnostics.
PDFs, Markdown, chat, Shortcuts actions and package management from the command line.
Getting data back off a deleted volume or a failing disk.
Destroying data on a disk you are selling, returning or retiring.
Password managers, the system keychain, and persistence auditing.
Menu bar stats, process viewers, power and thermal monitoring, disk benchmarks and display control.
The terminal emulator, the shell around it, and the replacements for the stock Unix tools.
Git itself, plus the CLI, TUI and surgery tools around it.
Virtual machines, installer media, and emulating other architectures and consoles.