How To Make macOS Look Different

Alisa "Foxicorn" Nekrasova
Mac O’Clock
Published in
12 min readJun 21, 2020

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

As a full-time mobile developer, I need to build apps for iOS. Unlike Android development, which can be done under Windows, Linux or macOS, iOS developers don’t have any choice. Apple macOS is a beautiful and stylish operating system, but when you see it 10 hours per day, 7 days per week, you simply get tired of it.

Several years ago I tried to find some ways to change the look of macOS, but I didn’t find many settings. You can change the dock size, the accent and the highlight colors and since macOS Mojave you can also use dark mode. I tried to find a solution on the Internet, but all I found was that the user interface of macOS is nailed or glued, which means not changeable.

macOS General preferences

Really, macOS doesn’t have many UI adjustments out of the box, but there are many tools which can make it look and feel completely different.

How to get apps

First of all, I’d like to talk a little about getting new apps for macOS. Starting with Snow Leopard, the main way to install apps is the Mac App Store. Then we have the Apple updated security settings and the limited installation of apps from other sources. Fortunately for us, macOS users, any app can…

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Alisa "Foxicorn" Nekrasova
Mac O’Clock

Game and software developer with more than 17 years of experience. Freelancer, writer, author of the book “Swift Recipes for iOS Developers”.