macOS

Bypassing Quarantine

On the one hand, I hate Apple's constant locking down of third-party software. On the other hand, I'm a sysadmin and have worked in on-call IT and... yeah, the vast majority of people need to be saved from themselves.

Single Basis

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine path/to/binary

Across the entire system

sudo defaults write com.apple.LaunchServices LSQuarantine -bool NO

Note also that the right-click-open trick now sometimes fails but not because Apple have explicitly blocked it. They've just made a secret 'open anyway' button that shows up in the security pane of the Settings app. If you go there after a failed open, chances are you can allow it regardless. It still kinda sucks, but it's one-time per app.

Touchbar Stuff

Touchbar settings are mostly defunct these days, but I had a touchbar-enabled 2019 MacBook Pro from my job until quite recently.

Setting the touchbar to just be the regular control strip from a typical MacBook keyboard —

• Open System Settings
• Search for the Keyboard pane
• Press the Touch Bar Settings button
• Set the main mode to Expanded Control Strip
• Set the fn mode to function keys
• You can also take the opportunity to add a few non-standard keys to the main row using the Customise Touch Bar button

You can also set the touchbar to display the function row in certain, select apps —

• (Still in the same Keyboard pane)
• Press the Keyboard Shortcuts button
• Locate Function Keys in the left sidebar
• Add your chosen apps to the list

I typically have Sublime Text, Blender and Obsidian configured to show the function row by default.

Disabling auto-corrections and double-space periods

In Sonoma, this is now located under the Keyboard > Input Language button. Click the button labelled with you input language to disable all that garbage.