The Best Ways to Customize MacOS

MacOS is great in many ways, but it’s far from the most customizable operating system on the market. Sure, it’s not locked down to the extent that iOS and iPadOS are, but compared to Linux and even Windows, macOS really doesn’t let you change the look and feel much.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room to modify the operating system to make it the way you want, if you know where to look. Here are some third-party tools that help you make macOS your own.

Use a custom cursor

It’s pretty simple to change the appearance of the mouse pointer in Windows and Linux: just dig into the settings. On macOS, you can only change the pointer size.

Unless you install free and open source Mousecape. This application allows you to create a cursor and then use it instead of the system defaults. You can also install sliders created by others. There’s no centralized collection of cursors for this unfortunately, but I found a fun hand on Github, some Wii cursors, and a decent collection on DeviantArt. You can also try creating your own set.

Note that Tahoe users will need to download an updated fork to use Mousecape – the main version does not currently work. You will need to install a preliminary download as of this writing.

Use any website as wallpaper

Credit: Justin Pot

Beautiful wallpapers, including dynamic ones, are included with macOS. There is also the option to use your own photos. But what macOS doesn’t offer are custom live wallpapers.

Enter Plash. This free app lets you turn any website into a macOS wallpaper, which opens up all kinds of interactive possibilities. A few sites included let you look out a random stranger’s window, see real-time weather data, or admire animated pixel art, but you can use any website you can think of. It’s a lot of fun to play with.

Credit: Justin Pot

The macOS menu bar is a bit of a mess. Windows makes it relatively easy to hide icons by dragging them to a secondary area. Apple hadn’t offered anything like this until Tahoe, which added a way to disable any icon in Settings. The problem: it’s all or nothing. Hide an icon in Settings and there is no quick way to access it other than going back into Settings and turning it back on.

For this, you will need a third-party application. I personally recommend Ice, which is the best free app for cleaning up your menu bar. My colleague Pranay recommends Barbee, another great option. Both make it easy to hide menu bar icons in a secondary bar accessible by tapping an icon, similar to how it works in Windows. Every Mac user should install some sort of tool like this.

Change your folder icons

Credit: Justin Pot

This one isn’t exactly unofficial, but it’s so buried it might as well be. You can change the icon of any folder, document, or even application by right-clicking it, clicking “Get Info,” and then dragging an image to the icon in the window that opens. Weird, right? But it works, which means you can customize the folders to look the way you want. I talked about it in an article with more details.

It gets really fun if you install Fancy Folders, a free app seen in the image above that lets you create folder icons in any color you want, complete with whatever text or icon you want. It’s a lot of fun to play with and can be very useful for keeping things visually organized.