Sometimes Apple, with all its advanced wizardry, overlooks the little things in its operating system that make some of us Mac users scratch our heads and say, “what the heck are they thinking?!” But rest assured, third party developers come along with awesome applications that help the rest of us tinker around with the system just enough to remain on the safe side of not crashing into a dead end wall.

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2. Tinkertool Download Mac

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Tinkertool is one such application that Mac power users have used for years to make little tweaks to Mac OS X.

1. TinkerTool is an application that allows you to have access to some additional preference setting in Mas OS X and activate some hidden and rare features in the operating system. Without worrying the preference changes can affect other users, you even do not need the administrative privileges to.
2. TinkerTool System is a collection of system utility features helping you in performing advanced administration tasks on Apple Macintosh computers. The application makes use of a self-adapting user interface which automatically adjusts to the computer model and to the version of OS X you are running.

In the words of the developers, Tinkertool

is an application that gives you access to additional preferences settings Apple has built into the Mac OS X. This allows you to activate hidden Mac features in the operating system and in some of the applications delivered with the system.

On the Tinkertool”˜s Details page, the developer provides over a hundred Mac features and settings that Tinkertool can modify, but their documentation for what Tinkertool can do doesn’t illustrate well what many of those changes look like, especially for new and intermediate Mac users. So the purpose of this article is show you some of the changes that might appeal to general users of Tinkertool.

iTunes 10 Tweaks

Let’s start off with the most obvious tweaks you might want Tinkertool to make. In the recent release of iTunes 10, Apple did a makeover of the media player’s interface that some users, including myself, are not too happy about.

Point in case, Apple got rid of the title bar of iTunes and put the close/minimize/expand buttons into a vertical position.

If you want to bring back the design interface like it was in iTunes 9, all you need to do is check the “Use standard window with title bar and horizontal buttons“ box in Tinkertool, log out and log back into your user account, and presto the buttons and title are back where they used to be.

Among the five other settings, another little iTunes Tinkertool tweak that some users might like is being able to add half-star ratings.

Finder Tweaks

In the area of Finder tweaks, Tinkertool allows you to show hidden system files, which is something only useful if you know what to do with those files. So otherwise, best leave them alone.

But there are some settings that you might find useful, such as the ability to have Quick Look show the insides of folders.

Also, if you want to remove some of the menu items in Finder, Tinkertool enables you to do that.

You can also add “Quit” to the Finder menu, useful for when the Finder is acting ugly and you need to shut it down for a minute.

It’s also pretty nice to add scroll arrows at both ends of Finder windows, or you can choose to just put them at the start or the end.

Dock Tweaks

The only tweak in this area that appealed to me is the ability to add a recent items stack to my dock.

Other features include the ability to use spring-loaded tiles, and to disable three-dimensional glass effect, replacing it with a black background – as in the screenshot below. Not very attractive, but it’s an option if you’re trying to do a fancy makeover of your desktop or something.

QuickTime Tweaks

If you’re in the habit of using QuickTime Player for editing video, Tinkertool enables you to add an Option key setting for editing audio as well video.

You can also make changes to the QuickTime interface, getting rid of the title bar, and disabling the navigation controls even when the cursor re-enters the window.

Safari Tweaks

One of the best Tinkertool tweaks for Safari is the ability to disable the warning you get when closing a window that includes an unsubmitted form. For me it’s just one less click that I have to make, thanks to Tinkertool.

Undos & Resetting

I have only highlighted about a third of the tweaks that Tinkertool can make. If you”˜re using the program for the first time, you might feel a little apprehensive about making changes. But based on my tests, any changes you apply can be undone by either relaunching the application or logging out and back in, to apply changes. The instructions for applying and undoing settings are clearly present at the bottom of Tinkertool”˜s window.

There’s also a Reset button that puts everything back to default settings.

In its fourth version, Tinkertool seems to be a pretty stable tool that allows you to do some cool little makeovers in Mac OS X without monkeying around too deeply in hidden territory. In other words, it’s a safe program that you might try just to see what it can do.

If you’re an experienced user of Tinkertool, let us know how you have used the program. What tweaks do you find most useful?

1. Yep, I could agree with that.

2. Tinkertool is Mac's long awaited TweakUI.

What We Like

• Able to set many of the Mac’s hidden preferences.

• Can reset to system defaults, or restore to condition before your last edits.

• Settings well organized by app or system component affected.

• Indicates when selected change will take effect.

• Can export preference settings for use on another device.

Is Tinkertool Safe For Mac

What We Don't Like

• Poor documentation, other than an online FAQ.

TinkerTool from Marcel Bresink is a utility you can use to customize how your Mac looks and works. OS X has quite a few hidden features and preference settings that are locked away from the average user. I’ve written a few tips showing how to access these hidden system switches using the Terminal app. And while I don’t mind using Terminal, others find it a bit underwhelming in its user interface. They're also perhaps a bit intimidated by the raw power available in Terminal and worried they may accidentally delete important data or harm some part of the Mac system by using it.

TinkerTool, on the other hand, provides access to many of the same hidden preferences as Terminal does, but without the need to memorize obscure text commands. Instead, TinkerTool lays out most of the available OS X preferences in a user interface that's easy to navigate and understand.

Advantages of TinkerTool

TinkerTool has been one of our favorite utilities for getting our Macs to work the way we want them to. Its easy-to-use interface, comprised mostly of checkboxes, radio buttons, and drop-down menus, makes it clear what most changes will do.

The other chief advantage of TinkerTool over some competing apps that manage hidden system preferences is that it only allows you to change existing preferences; it doesn't install any type of code, create background processes, or in any other way interfere with how your Mac operates. It has no cleaning or monitoring options, and it doesn’t try to outguess what the system does on its own, such as when to run certain cleanup scripts or clear out system caches. This makes TinkerTool one of the more benign of the system preference setting utilities available; it's also not as likely to cause irreversible damage if used incorrectly.

Installing TinkerTool

TinkerTool is downloaded as a disk image file; double-clicking the .dmg file will open the image file to reveal the app and a link to the online FAQ. As mentioned in the cons for TinkerTool, the FAQ is the extent of the help available. Although the FAQ is not a replacement for a manual, I do recommend taking a few minutes to look the FAQ over.

Installation is accomplished by simply moving the TinkerTool app from the image file to your Mac’s Applications folder. Once that's done, you can close the image file and move it to the trash.

Using TinkerTool

TinkerTool opens as a single-window app with a tabbed toolbar. Each tab represents a category for changing system settings. Currently, there are 10 tabs:

• Finder
• Dock
• General
• Desktop
• Applications
• Fonts
• Safari
• iTunes
• QuickTime X
• Reset

Each tab contains system settings appropriate to the listed category. As an example, you can select the Finder tab, place a checkmark in the box for Show hidden and system files, and achieve the same thing that I show you how to do with Terminal in the View Hidden Folders on Your Mac Using Terminal article.

However, while TinkerTool has many of the most often-used hidden system preferences, it's missing a few, such as the ability to add a Dock Spacer to your Mac.

One very helpful feature of TinkerTool is that in the bottom left corner of each tabbed window, you'll find a note indicating when changes you make will take effect. For instance, any changes in the Applications tab won’t take effect until the next time you log in or restart your Mac. So, be sure to check for when the change will actually occur, so you won't think it didn't work.​

The developer deserves special thanks for including Reset, the final tab. TinkerTool can restore changes you make back to either the original default settings that were present when a fresh install of OS X happened or to the condition the system preferences were last in before you got a hankering to tinker with TinkerTool. Either way, you have a quick and easy way to extract yourself from any trouble you get yourself into, which is a very nice feature for an app to have.

Final Thoughts

Tinkertool Download Mac

TinkerTool is easy to use and provides access to many of your Mac’s hidden system settings. It doesn't install any background apps to monitor or run special cleaning routines, which can affect system performance; it simply does what its name implies: lets you tinker with your Mac’s settings.