Your MacBook with These Effortless Hacks: Want to make your Mac appear unique and personal? You can customize your Mac’s functions and looks thanks to some easy hacks. While you cannot make deep system changes, you can tweak the overall appearance of your system and spruce it up. Let’s take a look at how you can do that.
Your MacBook with These Effortless Hacks- Pick a New Wallpaper for Your macOS Desktop
Swapping the default wallpaper is one of the easiest ways to make your desktop feel new. You can make this simple change by going to System Preferences and clicking on Desktop & Screen Saver. Go to the Desktop tab and choose a fresh picture from the Mac desktop themes. Alternatively, you can choose to select a solid background color. You can even access your Photos library to set the wallpaper as one of your pictures.
Your MacBook with These Effortless Hacks: There’s also the Dynamic Desktop section. This section contains wallpapers that automatically change the time of the day. You can further spice things up by choosing to change your system’s wallpaper every hour. You can even add interactive elements to make things more interesting.
Change the Lock Screen
Your MacBook with These Effortless Hacks: You can change your lock screen by changing the desktop background of your Mac. You can do so by going to System Preferences > choose Desktop & Screen Saver > select an image of your choice and confirm your choice.
You can also add a message to your lock screen by going to System Preferences > selecting Security & Privacy > clicking the lock icon under the General tab and entering your password > click the box next to Show a message when the screen is locked > set a lock screen message by writing the message > click OK.
If you don’t know how to lock a Mac, follow these steps:
- Open System Preferences
- Click on Users & Groups
- Click Login Options
- Find a dropdown menu by the Automatic Login and ensure it is set to Off
Customize the Control Center
Did you know Mac’s Control Center is customizable? You can choose the widgets that will be displayed on the menu bar and those that will remain hidden. To customize the Control Center, you must go to System Preferences > click Dock & Menu Bar. Then, you have to choose the widget you want and personalize it. To add or remove the setting to the menu bar, you must check or uncheck the Show in Menu Bar option.
Also, you can choose to keep a few widgets to stay visible only when they are in use and disappear when they are not being used.
Do you want to customize it a bit more? You can head to the Sound Control Center page and select when active in the dropdown menu to access the sound settings when your system is playing audio.
Use an Animated Login Avatar
If being greeted by your static selfie when your Mac starts is annoying, you can set an animated emoji as your login avatar. It is called a Memoji. These icons will respond to whatever you do on the lock screen. For instance, your character will sleep if you are away for a long time. If you mistake typing your passcode, the character will shake its head to show disappointment.
You can create an animated login avatar by heading to the System Preferences > clicking Users & Groups, hovering over your login picture > clicking Edit. Then, pick a new animated avatar from the Memoji tab for your lock screen. If you wish to create one, click the plus button. Then, click on Save.
Change the Color Scheme of Your System
Macs allow users to mix and match different color presets for highlights and system accents. So, you can come up with a fresh color scheme. Visit System Preferences > click General > pick fresh colors under Accent Color and Highlight Color. The updated color scheme will reflect across boxes, buttons, selections, menus, and other system elements.
In the same preference pane, you can also switch to Dark Mode. The Dark Mode feature is available on all systems running macOS Mojave and later. When you turn this feature on, it will provide a sleek dark appearance to all the elements like the menu bar, the Dock, sidebars, and windows.
Enhance the Dock’s Appearance
Your MacBook with These Effortless Hacks: You can customize your system’s Dock and make it look better. You can start by decluttering it. You can remove the icons of the applications you don’t use anymore by dragging them out. You will see the Remove prompt as you drag them out and release them.
You can drag your favorite applications into it from the Applications folder after you have made space. It is also possible to reposition the Dock and resize the icons. Hover the cursor and magnify them at various degrees.
The Bottom Line
So, ready to give your Mac system a fresh new look? Follow the hacks mentioned above, and you can quickly give your system a makeover.