mackup VS yadm

Also checkout Mackup.

I am using mackup to sync application preferences between devices over Dropbox. Now if any application with synced preferences is started I will get a question if given application is allowed to access Dropbox files (because it tries to access its preferences). Examples below.

Hello there! I use https://github.com/lra/mackup Not sure if its the BEST but it works well for me. * What does it do - Back ups your application settings in a safe directory (e.g. Dropbox) - Syncs your application settings among all your workstations - Restores your configuration on any fresh install in one command line

Yeah, I went through a similar process when I finally upgraded my MBP after 8 years on a 2013 MBP. In light of the transition from Intel to Apple Silicon, I decided to do some spring cleaning with a fresh install. I ended up curating my own setup/bootstrap scripts as well as using mackup to backup and sync my dotfiles and app configs.

I use Mackup which syncs a many app settings including Raycast to your choice of location.

I moved away from using a dotfiles repo a few years ago because I kept forgetting to add/commit files as I changed them.

Instead I use mackup[0] which automatically manages symlinks to your Dropbox/Drive/Share and has support for a huge amount of software by default. You can also manually add “extra” files you wish to track if you like.

[0] https://github.com/lra/mackup

Brew bundle will install fresh copies of your package list. If you have any configuration files that you want to reuse, you’d have to transfer those separately. This might help https://github.com/lra/mackup

Everyone hand-rolls their own dotfile management system, but YADM already does everything you need:

https://yadm.io/

I've been working around this using tools built on top of git like [yadm](https://github.com/TheLocehiliosan/yadm) and relying on `ls-files` to list all my tracked dotfiles and their paths.

Still having everything in one place would make things much simpler. Great idea!

I wonder if the program i use to manage my dotfiles could help manage your scripts and extend your setup to all your desktops? Its called yadm (https://yadm.io/) it makes it so easy to have a laptop and a desktop or two.

I really like that one but still prefer yadm because you can just edit your files as usual and then yadm add them wherever you are.

If you haven’t already, this is the time to install a tool like yadm and get your computer configuration into version control. Your command-line tools can be managed by yadm directly, your system settings can mostly be managed with a yadm bootstrap script that runs things like defaults write, and the software you install can be managed with a Brewfile that the yadm bootstrap script uses to install software with Homebrew. Don’t manually download Xcode, use xcodes to do it.

I personally use YADM. It's basically a git repo on my home folder, that only tracks what I explicitly set. And you can setup bootstraps to do what you said, install a bunch of stuff or make custom changes. In it's essence, it's a set of bash/sh files that are executed sequentially when you launch the yadm bootstrap command.