REVIEW | Mountain Tweaks

ByMike Moffit

Released in fall 2012, Mountain Tweaks 1.0.4 is an app for Mountain Lion users that is designed to ‘tweak’ your OS into super-usability. It’s a user-friendly, all-in-one solution that takes aim on the oft-annoying ‘upgrades’ in 10.8 that Apple has instituted. (Default iCloud saving, anyone?)

If you’ve noticed things about Mountain Lion that you wish you could change, but don’t want to dig into Terminal or attempt other one-off hacks, you’ll definitely want to give it a try. Using a simple “Yes/No” toggle, Mountain Tweaks highlights some of the most popular features in Mountain Lion that you may want to turn on or off.

Fun fact: Mountain Tweaks (and its predecessor, Lion Tweaks*) was developed by a 17-year-old from Norway. The app is free, but donations are encouraged, especially if you like what you see. Take a look at some of the available tweaks below (shortened list):

Notable Features

  • Show/Hide the user Library folder
  • Change to a 2D or 3D dock
  • Enable/Disable system window animation
  • Enable/Disable Spelling Correction
  • Show Hidden Files
  • Change iCal leather interface to aluminum
  • Change Address Book leather interface to aluminum
  • Customize Launchpad folder background
  • Enable colors in the Finder sidebar
  • Remove Spotlight icon
  • Remove leather from Contacts
  • Remove leather from Calendar
  • Disable default iCloud save location
  • Disable “Go to Folder” in Finder

Compatibility
Must be running 10.8 Mountain Lion; I have been using it on a recently-updated 10.8.3 system with no problems.

Get It
Download Mountain Tweaks here.

*Lion Tweaks has gotten rave reviews from multiple sites, including Macworld, Lifehacker, CNET, and more. It’s been downloaded over 300,000 times, and it’s estimated that about 3% of Lion users are using it, according to the developer.

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