Nix-On-MacOS

dotfiles on macOS & a memo of the commands used for nix on macOS

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• darwin-configuration.nix is the file equivalent to configuration.nix on NixOS. If you want to use that feature on macOS, see nix-darwin.
• Use Home-manager to config zsh, bat, tmux and newsboat and install packages.
• Also, you can take a look at MacOS Nix Setup (an alternative to Homebrew).
• You can see the command in nixCommand.md.
• Here is the skills of using vim and zsh.
• Here is the manual for me to set up a brand new mac in the future.
• I also put my tmux.conf, .zshrc and .vimrc here.
• reattach-to-user-namespace should be installed in order to communicate with system clipboard when in tmux.
• Use Google日本語入力 for inputting Japanese on my macOS.
• Use Rime鼠鬚管 for inputting Chinese. I mainly use 地球拼音, but have 朙月拼音 as a fallback.

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iiNA special config

Because yt-dlp is installed at /run/current-system/sw/bin/yt-dlp by nix-darwin, you would have to make a soft-link in /usr/local/bin to let iiNA use it.

cd /usr/local/bin

ln -s /run/current-system/sw/bin/yt-dlp /usr/bin/youtube-dl

Needed softwares

• Amethyst: A tiling window manager for macOS.
• Alfred: A spotlight's substitute.
• Apple Configurator: An app for configuring iOS devices on macOS.
• AppCleaner: A small app which allows you to thoroughly uninstall unwanted apps.
• Amphetamine: Powerful keep-awake utility.
• BetterZip: For preview archived files in Finder (Free version just work)
• BetterTouchTool: An app that allows you to customize various input devices on your Mac.
• Firefox: A fallback browser.
• Gestimer: A timer on the menubar.
• Hidden Bar: Hide the icons on the menubar.
• iina: Video player.
• Itsycal: Itsycal is a tiny menu bar calendar which has a lot of features.
• KeepingYouAwake: A small keep-awake utility.
• Keka: the macOS file archiver.
• Line: A chatting app.
• Maccy: A powerful clipboard manager.
• Macs Fan Control: Control the fan in mac.
• MenuBar Stats: the monitor of mac.
• Microsoft Office: Just Office.
• NTFS for Mac: as its name.
• OnlySwitch: ⚙️ All-in-One menu bar app, hide 💻MacBook Pro's notch, dark mode, AirPods, Shortcuts
• Spaceman: An application for macOS that allows you to view your Spaces / Virtual Desktops in the menu bar.
• SpaceId: macOS space indicator.
• Yoink: Improved Drag and Drop.
• AdGuard for Safari: XD.
• Vimari: A Safari extension that provides vim style keyboard based navigation.

Want to buy or Download when getting a new Mac in the future.

• Bartender: Take control of your menu bar.
• MacUpdater: An application that can scan your Mac and display which of the apps that you have installed are not up-to-date. MacUpdater will stop develop at 2026/1/1.

Note at 2025/5/1

IDK why nix-darwin is dead on my MacBook Air. So I removed it. Now I will just update nix by command below.

sudo nix-env --install --file '<nixpkgs>' --attr nix cacert -I nixpkgs=channel:nixpkgs-unstable
sudo launchctl remove org.nixos.nix-daemon
sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.nixos.nix-daemon.plist

You can also update Nix by

sudo -i nix upgrade-nix

Then check the version of Nix by

nix --version

And only install packages by home-manager.