this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2026
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[–] zerofk@lemmy.zip 45 points 4 days ago (4 children)

I believe strongly in customizing one's tools

The irony of saying this about a Mac.

[–] lowspeedchase@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] FunStuffIsFun@eviltoast.org 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Wow, I totally forgot that Danger 5 exists.

[–] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

There are tons of utils to customize the MacOS UI, including lots of open-source ones and some that kick ass off anything on Linux or Windows. Anyone saying that MacOS can't be customized, has never used MacOS.

[–] galaxy_nova@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (2 children)

You inclined to drop some examples?

[–] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Hammerspoon and Alfred are way better automation utils than alternatives in Windows or Linux. The absence of these two makes me weep regularly.

Karabiner might be the best too, haven't looked into third-party Linux remapping utils yet. Both Cinnamon and KDE support only predefined remapping out of the box.

HyperSwitch and a dozen other utils allow customizing cmd-tab switching, namely add switching between windows instead of apps.

Native Clipy clipboard manager is way snappier than CopyQ. At least for Windows there's Ditto.

There's even an util called Mos fixing the fact that apps with foreign UI frameworks don't understand the mouse scrolling speed properly, and treat the mouse and the touchpad differently. Which is also present in Windows.

You know about the touchbar? MTMR allows custom buttons on the touchbar, with custom actions. I've used it to connect/disconnect bluetooth headphones or hand them over to the phone (which was also set up as an Alfred command and as buttons on the phone itself, with bidirectional logic everywhere).

Shortcat allows keyboard access to arbitrary UI elements in the active window: sorta like Vimium for browsers, but you type a bit of the text label instead of a two-letter shortcut.

Hazel automatically processes files saved in particular folders, with particular rules — like the downloads. It can e.g. rename, move, or tag them. By the way, did you know that MacOS has tags for files while Windows and Linux have jackshit?

MacOS' Cocoa UI framework allows addressing any element in an app's window via xpath (iirc) and manipulate them, if given accessibility permissions from the user. Which permits doing a lot of UI automation without fiddling with mouse coordinates and faking clicks. And can be done with native AppleScript (although I'd prefer that they properly supported JXA instead). By the way, more than a few apps provide their own support for AppleScript, such that for example you can access notes in Evernote with it.

P.S. I also forgot about Automator, which is a first-party app by Apple, bundled with MacOS, that allows creating custom workflows for particular files, apps, or whatever. Neither Windows nor Linux ship with anything remotely like this, and even third-party apps in Win/Lin suck in comparison. iOS also has something similar with the Shortcuts app, while Google phones have the Assistant, which afaik can't work without phoning home.

[–] EtzBetz@feddit.org 4 points 3 days ago

Raycast, HazeOver, Nightfall, Amphetamine, Yabai, Glide, AltTab, AlDente, MonitorControl, LinearMouse come to my mind right now. Probably forgot a few.

[–] littleomid@feddit.org 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] magic_smoke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Yeah its not the minimalist distros were all used to running but it still is a Unix OS with root privileges no?

Either way its the dudes work PC, probably doesn't have a choice.

[–] littleomid@feddit.org 3 points 3 days ago

I meant Asahi Linux.

[–] NotSteve_@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

It's by no means Linux but I actually do find MacOS quite customisable, especially if you spend a lot of time in the command line. It's going in the opposite direction in the last couple years of course but you could straight up run the i3 TWM in XQuartz on MacOS if you wanted to

What customisations do you find MacOS lacks?