I use my Mac for work and always create a bootable backup just in case. This time around I had to go through an extra step.

1. Backup with carbon copy cloner (select legacy backup on the destination drive)
   1. This year I used a Samsung T7 shield and it backed up 800GB in 28 minutes!
2. Boot into recovery mode by shutting down then holding down the power button on my M1 MacBook Pro
3. Select the external drive to boot from
   1. When booting up from the external, there was an issue and I had to re-install Ventura, but it was fine after that and retained all my data.
4. After this I was able to boot my MacBook Pro from the external SSD.
5. Now that the backup is done (verified), proceed to clean install Sonoma.

Clean install Sonoma

• Download Sonoma using the App Store, but don’t install it
• sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ Sonoma.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/Untitled
• Shut down
• Hold the power button
• choose Options
• open Disk Utility
• Select “Macintosh HD – Data”
• Select “Erase”
• Optional: set format to APFS Case Sensitive
  • This is helpful if you are a developer because git is case sensitive.
• It will warn you about erasing everything, accept.
• It will reboot and ask you to activate your Mac
• Shut down
• Hold down power button and then choose to boot from the Sonoma installer
• Install Sonoma on Macintosh HD

Installing The Essencial MacOS Apps

• Node Version Manager 
• Swish for macOS
• SSH keys on macOS 
  • ssh-add .ssh/id_rsa.pub
  • edit .ssh/config – so that you don’t have to enter your ssh passkey every time

Host *
	IgnoreUnknown UseKeychain
    UseKeychain yes
    AddKeysToAgent yes
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa

• Homebrew
• How to install the latest ruby on M1 Macs
• Warp: The terminal for the 21st century
• GitHub – davidwernhart/AlDente-Charge-Limiter: macOS tool to limit maximum charging percentage
• Cloud backup software for Mac and Windows : Arq
• Password Manager for Families, Enterprise & Business

Installing Java JDK

brew install --cask temurin

Ref: Installing Java on macOS 13 Ventura – Wolf Paulus

Mac OS Preferences

• Turn off rearrange spaces automatically
• Turn off click desktop
• Swipe between spaces to four fingers
• Swipe between pages to three fingers – this helps me avoid accidentally navigating back when I am trying to scroll.
• Change the default location for screenshots: press Shift-Command-5, click on Options and choose “Other Location” to choose a destination.

Other Great Mac Apps

iStat Menus ForkLift 4 – most advanced file manager and FTP client for macOS Unibox for Mac and iOS – Emails Grouped by Sender I searched for another email client that organizes messages by sender, but found none. I am so in love with this feature that I consider this the best email client despite the fact that it has not received an update since 2016.Bartender 5 – Take control of your Menu bar Arc from The Browser Company PNPM Installation – corepack enable pnpm Screens Connect – Make your computer reachable from anywhere – Edovia brew install python

Ref: How to Clean Install macOS Sonoma (Quick and Easy)

Favorite Features of Sonoma