Native macOS app. SwiftUI. No Electron.

The defaults write GUI
that macOS never shipped.

80+ hidden macOS settings surfaced in a System Settings-style interface. Firewall, Dock, Finder, screenshots, network, mouse acceleration — all reversible, all logged, no terminal required.

PowerChest home screen showing 78 managed settings, presets, and snapshot count

You know this feeling.

The old way
$ defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-delay -float 0
$ defaults write com.apple.dock autohide-time-modifier -float 0.4
$ killall Dock
$ # wait, which blog post was that from?
$ # does this still work on Sequoia?
$ # how do I undo it?
With PowerChest
Make the Dock feel faster
Remove the delay before the Dock appears, and speed up the slide-in animation.
Snappy
Auto-snapshot created · Dock will restart

Built for people who read man pages for fun.

Everything you need. Nothing you don't.

80+ curated settings

Dock timing, Finder tweaks, firewall controls, screenshot behavior, mouse acceleration, network privacy, and more. Every setting is hand-verified on current macOS.

Time Machine for settings

Auto-snapshot before every change. Browse by date, compare against current state, restore individual settings or entire snapshots. Never pruned.

One-click presets

Snappy Mac, Developer Desk, Clean Screenshots, Solid UI, Minimal Fuss. Apply a bundle of opinionated changes with one tap. Auto-snapshot first, obviously.

🔒

Admin settings with a lock

Firewall, stealth mode, SSH, captive portal, MAC spoofing. Uses the native macOS password prompt. Auth cached for ~5 minutes so bulk changes only ask once.

📋

Full audit trail

Every change logged with old value, new value, source, and timestamp. Grouped by day. You'll never wonder "wait, what did I change last Thursday?"

📦

Export / Import configs

Save your setup as a .powerchestprofile. Import on another Mac with a diff preview showing exactly what will change. Portable tinkering.

See it in action.

One-click presets and recent change timeline

Presets & Activity

One-click preset bundles and a timeline of every change you've made.

Network settings with MAC address spoofing

Network & Connectivity

Firewall, MAC spoofing, SSH, IPv6 — with admin badge and per-interface controls.

Time Machine view with snapshots grouped by date

Time Machine

Every change auto-creates a restore point. Browse by date, compare, and roll back.

Home dashboard with stats and quick actions

Dashboard

Stats at a glance — managed settings, customizations, snapshots, and quick actions.

Settings you won't find in System Settings.

These are the ones that justify the app's existence.

Disable mouse acceleration

Set com.apple.mouse.scaling to -1 for raw, unaccelerated input. Gamers and designers, this one's for you.

Firewall stealth mode

Makes your Mac invisible to pings and port scans. One toggle instead of digging through socketfilterfw.

Stop .DS_Store pollution

Prevent Finder from littering metadata files on every network share and USB drive you touch.

MAC address spoofing

Per-interface, with validation and one-click randomization. Reverts on reboot by design.

Captive portal detection

Stop macOS from phoning home to Apple every time you join a Wi-Fi network.

Font smoothing for non-Retina

Apple removed the checkbox in Mojave. The setting still works. If text looks thin on your external monitor, this fixes it.

Bluetooth audio quality

The default bitpool minimum is absurdly low. Slide it up for noticeably better AirPods sound.

Disable App Nap

Stop macOS from secretly pausing your background apps. Useful when tasks mysteriously stall.

Under the hood

For the people who read the architecture section of READMEs.

Apply Engine

Single mutation pipeline with 12-step transaction lifecycle. All changes — manual edits, presets, restores, imports — go through the same path. Auto-snapshot before every mutation. If the snapshot fails, the change aborts.

Four Adapters

DefaultsAdapter uses UserDefaults for fast reads, CLI for writes. CommandAdapter handles chflags. PrivilegedAdapter uses AppleScript for admin ops. RestartService does killall for Dock/Finder/SystemUIServer.

Curated, not scraped

Every setting is hand-picked, tested on current macOS, and bundled as Swift data. No runtime discovery, no parsing random plist files, no guessing what keys do.

Native SwiftUI

Built with SwiftUI and @Observable. No Electron, no web views, no Catalyst, no AppKit bridging hacks. System Settings-style layout because that's what your muscle memory expects.

Every setting in the catalog.

80+ macOS settings across 10 categories. Every one tested on current macOS, documented, and reversible.

🔍 Finder & Files

Control how Finder displays files, handles extensions, and manages folders.

Show hidden files Always show file extensions Show path bar Show status bar Keep folders on top Full POSIX path in title bar New Finder window location Show ~/Library folder Skip extension change warning Skip empty Trash warning Allow quitting Finder Save to local disk by default Folder spring-loading delay Disable .DS_Store on network volumes Disable .DS_Store on USB drives Default search scope Preferred view style

Dock & Interface

Dock speed, size, position, window behavior, scroll bars, and app behavior.

Dock icon size Dock position (left/bottom/right) Dock auto-hide delay Dock auto-hide animation speed Hide recent apps from Dock Show only open apps in Dock Minimize windows into app icon Minimize animation (genie/scale) Title bar double-click action Scroll bar visibility Expand Save dialogs by default Expand Print dialogs by default Plain text TextEdit by default Stop Help windows from floating Disable App Nap

Keyboard & Input

Key repeat, accent popup, autocorrect, smart punctuation, and mouse acceleration.

Key repeat instead of accent popup Key repeat rate Initial key repeat delay Disable smart quotes Disable smart dashes Disable auto-capitalization Disable auto-correct Disable double-space period Tab through all UI controls Disable mouse acceleration Mouse acceleration curve (-1 to 3)

Windows & Spaces

Mission Control, Spaces ordering, window grouping, and multi-display behavior.

Keep Spaces in fixed order Group windows by app in Mission Control Mission Control animation speed Separate Spaces per display

📷 Screenshots

Where screenshots go, what format they use, and how they look.

Screenshot save location Screenshot format (PNG/JPG/TIFF/PDF) Disable window shadow in screenshots Disable floating thumbnail Custom filename prefix

🌐 Safari & Developer

Safari address bar, developer tools, download behavior, and status bar.

Show full URL in address bar Enable Develop menu WebKit developer extras Stop auto-opening downloads Show status bar with link URLs

👁 Visuals & Accessibility

Transparency, contrast, motion, cursor size, and font rendering.

Reduce transparency Increase contrast Reduce motion Cursor size Font smoothing for non-Retina displays

🕔 Menu Bar

Clock format, battery percentage, and status item visibility.

24-hour clock Flash time separators Show/hide date in menu bar

🛡 Safety & Security

Gatekeeper, quarantine behavior, and crash reporting.

Skip Gatekeeper quarantine prompts Crash reporter detail level

🌐 Network & Connectivity

Firewall, DNS privacy, AirDrop, Bluetooth, MAC addresses, and remote access. Some settings require admin.

Application firewall Firewall stealth mode Block all incoming connections Disable .DS_Store on network volumes Disable .DS_Store on USB drives Safari DNS prefetching Safari preload top hit Send Do Not Track header Captive portal detection Disable AirDrop Bluetooth audio bitpool quality Remote Login (SSH) IPv6 on Wi-Fi MAC address spoofing

📦 Config Portability

Take your setup with you. PowerChest exports your entire configuration as a portable .powerchestprofile file you can import on any other Mac.

Export current config to file Import config from another Mac Diff preview before importing Reset all settings to macOS defaults Auto-snapshot before import Share configs with your team

Set up one Mac exactly how you like it, export the profile, and apply it to your next machine in seconds. The import screen shows a side-by-side diff of exactly what will change before you commit — no surprises.

Stop Googling defaults write

macOS 14+ · Free · No account required · No telemetry

SwiftUI macOS 14+ No Electron No telemetry No account