Syncing iMac and Macbook

I just discovered the podcast this weekend and I love it already! Now I’m hoping ti gnt sikn help with something that’s been haunting me for a couple years: synchronizing configurations between my iMac and MacBook.

With all the automatic syncing between Apple devices, this one seems to be — not a thing (or at least something I can’t find). I’m able to synchronize a lot of apps easily between the machines, but I haven’t been able to get basic command-line configuration stuff used in development to sync up without creating really complex, fragile processes in Hazel or other tools. I even tried using Fig’s new Dotfiles, but it just seemed to make things worse.

Has anyone broken the code on keeping updated config files in sync via Fig, Hazel, or some other means? I’m talking things like:

  • ssh config
  • Global Git configs
  • npm packages
  • Other dotfiles
  • Other stuff I know I have to be missing

Ideally, I’d be able to update the config on either computer and have it sync to the other one the next time it’s online. If not, then I can choose one as a source of truth and sync to the other one.

To further complicate things, the iMac is Intel and the Macbook is an M1. But, I can work through that if I can figure out how to just get it done.

Have you looked at chezmoi?

It uses git as a backend so you could script any updates and use its templates approach to account for when you need files to be built rather than identical on different machines.

I’ve used mackup for years storing the backed up config files in iCloud Drive

Thanks @sylumer and @dustinknopoff . I’m looking at them both. I’ll be reformatting my Macbook soon and will try to implement one of those as I go. Wish me luck!

It’s not dedicated to this purpose but Syncthing might work well