Set up a new Mac from your old one

Instead of an evening of copying brew install lines out of old notes, save your Mac's setup with Casky and apply it on the new one in one run.

1. Save this Mac as a setup

On your current Mac, choose File › Save This Mac as Setup. Casky starts the setup with every app and command-line tool installed from Homebrew, and every App Store app.

A setup can also hold:

• Homebrew services, and which ones run at login
• VS Code and Cursor extensions
• npm, pipx, uv and Cargo packages
• Dotfiles from a Git repository, linked or copied, with backups of the files they replace
• Mac settings: Dock, Finder, keyboard, or any defaults key

2. Get it to the new Mac

Turn on Settings › General › Sync and your setups are in iCloud Drive on every Mac you use. Or choose Export Setup to save a .casky.json file and open it on the other Mac with File › Import Setup.

3. Apply it

Install Casky on the new Mac, open the setup and choose Apply. If Homebrew or mas is missing, Casky offers to install it, then goes through every step, with a log for each one. Downloads happen all at once, and App Store apps, extensions and packages install alongside Homebrew.

Each setup also shows what this Mac is missing, and what this Mac has that the setup doesn't, so you can keep the two in step later.

From Terminal

Settings › Advanced › Install adds a casky command:

casky apply work.casky.json --dry-run   # list the steps
casky apply work.casky.json             # run them

What a setup doesn't move

Casky installs apps and tools and applies settings; it doesn't copy your documents or each app's own data. Use Migration Assistant, Time Machine or iCloud for those.

Without Casky on the other Mac

Export the setup as a Brewfile, an Ansible playbook or a nix-darwin flake and use the tools you already have.