Lately I needed to change computer. I've been thinking about backing up only my relevant files, like documents, images app settings, dotfiles, etc, instead of backing up the full OS. And when I wanted to install my macOS from scratch I would only need to execute a script to restore those files and quickly having a working computer in a couple of minutes.
Be advice that this is a working progress and I'm open for comments to improve this scripts.
Start from Scratch
Although not needed to execute the script, you may want to start from scratch (clean your current disk), and if you didn't both a new computer, your only option is to reinstall your macOS. You can read the official apple guide on how to do it.
But in short:
- Restart machine and press
Cmd+Rto go into recovery mode - Open Disk Utility to wipe out disk entirely (this should be an option of the initial setup)
- Quit Disk Utility, go back to setup and use the option to reinstall OS
Now that you have a clean disk you can go through all the steps of installing your macOS, creating the user account, etc.
The Magic Steps
When you gain access to the desktop, you could now follow the next steps that will installs and configure most of the software I use on my personal macOS using Homebrew and Chezmoi.
1. Install Homebrew
You need to start from somewhere right? So, let's ensure Homebrew installed using skip tap clonning option:
export HOMEBREW_INSTALL_FROM_API=1
export HOMEBREW_NO_ANALYTICS=1
/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"
This also will install Command Line Tools for Xcode, and all the tools for the next steps.
2. Clone the repository to your local drive
Of course I will use my own repository, but you could clone it and customise it.
git clone https://github.com/kimus/macos-from-scratch
cd macos-from-scratch
3. Run bootstrap.sh script
From here it's expected to be all automatically.
./bootstrap.sh
By default it uses your current user name (environment variable USER) to get your dotfiles from GitHub. You can use my own like this:
GITHUB_USERNAME=kimus ./bootstrap.sh
The script will ask you for your Bitwarden account. This is where I store my secrets (i.e. SSH keys).
In the future I'm planning to restore my working folder and other files (pictures, documents, etc) from a backup made with restic. I have a separated post about restic backups.
And that's it, at this time you should have a working macOS with your favourite applications and settings.
Here is how my terminal looks like:
Defaults
This script will setup a bunch of tools, applications and configurations.
Tools and Applications
Applications (installed with Homebrew Cask):
Check Brewfile for the full list of tools and applications.
Visual Studio Code Extensions
Check vscodefile for the full list of Visual Studio Code extensions.
MacOS System Preferences
There are a few other preferences and settings added on for various apps and services. Check osxfile for a list of macos specific system preferences.
dotfiles
Finally, the dotfiles are also installed by Chezmoi into the current user's home directory. This step needs the Bitwarden account to restore the SSH keys.
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