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Macbook Pro Touch Bar: Essential Setup

Authors

Here are some tips about how to setup Macbook Pro's Touch Bar for more convenient useage.

1. Making it static

  1. Open System Preferences -> Keyboard.
  2. In Touch Bar shows list select Expanded Control Strip.

Now all the familiar buttons are in one place.

2. No more Siri button

Siri button is very colorful, which attracts attention immediately. Also, it takes additional space. At the same time, it is not the most useful thing for many workflows, so here is how to delete it:

  1. Open System Preferences -> Keyboard.
  2. Tap Customize Control Strip... button at the bottom right corner.
  3. Move the cursor to the bottom, beyond the screen (as if you had the second screen there), and you'll see "Siri" button highlighted.
  4. Drag it and move up to remove it completely from the Touch Bar.

You can do the same with the rest of the buttons. I personally prefer to leave all of the standard ones: even touch buttons are better than nothing at all when it comes to control brightness, sound level and other stuff like that.

3. For those without physical Esc button

In some cases, it's useful to assign caps lock key to esc. Here's how to do it:

  1. System Preferences -> Keyboard.
  2. Tap Modifier Keys... button. You'll see the small window with buttons modifications, and caps lock will be the first one.
  3. Select the Escape from the list next to Caps lock and hit OK button. Done, now you have physical esc again 🎉

Bonus for external keyboards users with Windows layout

Btw, the same menu as in #3 could be used to switch Win button with Alt and make any windows-based keyboard feels like standard mac keyboard.

Conclusion

Hope this short article will help you to enjoy your machine even more ☕️