How To Set up MacOS as a Development Machine

It should come as no surprise that more and more developers are adopting macOS devices as development machines. On top of the OS being quite user-friendly and stable, the hardware is hard to beat. I’ve had MacBooks that have far outlasted any other laptop I’ve purchased (by a long shot), which means I not only do not have to spend the money for a new machine as often as I might have to with any other brand, but I can keep the same work environment I’ve created and perfected over the years.

If you’re a developer, you might have opted to migrate to macOS as well. If you’ve spent years developing on either Linux or Windows, you might have questions. One of the biggest questions to pop into your head could possibly be how to set up the new OS as a development machine.

Fortunately, it’s not nearly as hard as you might think.

Let me make this a bit easier for you and guide you through some of the things you might need and some of the customizations you can take care of.

It Starts With the Terminal

One thing to keep in mind is that macOS is very similar to Linux, especially when it comes to the terminal. Out of the box, you already have a ton of Linux-like tools at your disposal, including command-line text editors like nano, vi and vim. Beyond that, however, one of the first things you’ll want to do is install Homebrew so you gain access to even more command-line tools and apps. You can learn all about Homebrew, including how to install it and Cask, for installing graphical user interface (GUI) tools as well, in Install Homebrew on MacOS for More Dev Tool Options.

I would, however, suggest you install a different terminal app, as what macOS has to offer is fairly basic. As far as which terminal apps to install, I would suggest one of the following:

• Warp Terminal
• iTerm2
• Kitty
• Byobu
• Terminator

Some of the above terminals can be installed via downloadable binaries and some can be added via Homebrew.

You might also consider changing the default shells. MacOS defaults to the zsh shell, but if bash is your preferred shell for development purposes, you can easily switch. First, confirm your current shell with:

Most likely, it’ll report zsh.

To install bash, you’ll use brew like so:

After the installation completes, open the shells configuration file with:

If you don’t see /bin/bash listed, add it to the bottom of the file. Save and close the file with the Ctrl+X keyboard shortcut, and then switch your shell with:

Now, if you confirm your shell, it should report bash as the current.

If you don’t want to have to go through the process of customizing bash manually, you can install Oh My Bash, which is an open source framework for managing the bash configuration. Oh My Bash comes bundled with helpful functions, plugins, themes and more.

You can install Oh My Bash with the command:

Next, install Git with brew, like so:

You’ll probably know what to do next with Git.

More Efficient Window Management

On my MacOS devices, I make use of Apple’s Stage Manager, but most users aren’t terribly keen on that feature because it complicates multitasking, especially working with two windows simultaneously.

Fortunately, for developers, Apple finally added a tiling feature to the OS. You can drag a window to one of the display corners to have it fill a quarter of your screen, to the right or left edge to have it fill up half of the display vertically, or to the top or bottom to have it take up half horizontally.

If the built-in snapping/tiling feature isn’t enough, there’s a handy app called Rectangle that gives you more options for snapping/tiling. You can install Rectangle with the command:

Searching and Launching

If you’re like me, you need to be able to search for files and launch apps quickly, and without always taking your hands off the keyboard. For that, you can either wait until the macOS Tahoe upgrade (which supercharges Spotlight), or you can install Alfred (available in the App Store), which makes searching for files and many other tasks incredibly simple.

Development Tools

Of course, every developer has their tools of choice, and trying to cover all of those would be impossible. However, it’s important to know that most of the tools that you’ve grown accustomed to using are available for macOS.

For instance, you can install Node.js by first installing NVM with the command:

After that finishes, issue the command:

Next, download and install Node.js with:

There you go. You now have Node.js ready to rock.

You might also want to install Docker on your Mac, which can be done by downloading the binary installer for either Apple Silicon or Intel devices. Double-click the downloaded .dmg file and walk through the installation wizard.

Whichever apps, libraries, IDEs, frameworks and other tools you use are most likely also available for macOS, so make sure to search them out and install them.

It’s not nearly as hard to set up macOS for development, but do remember that what you need to install or configure will depend on your style and the projects you are working on.