Are there some things that you wish you could change about Apple’s default applications on the Mac? For instance, do you wish you could change the appearance, graphic effects, menu items, and other misc options? If so, you’re not alone!

That’s why Deeper, the ultimate personalization utility for Mac OS X, was created. It allows you to enable and disable all types of hidden functions in many of Apple’s applications. Although there are many customization options in Deeper and it may take 20-30 minutes to get things the way you’d like, you’ll find that Deeper is well worth it.

Getting Started

Deeper can be downloaded from Titanium’s Software website. It’s available for Mac OS X Lion and Mountain Lion. If you’re into the beta thing, you can try out the beta for Mountain Lion – although there is a warning label (since all betas have bugs and glitches). Once you drag the dmg file to your Applications folder, you’re ready to get started.

When you first run Deeper, you’ll need accept the terms and authorize it by enter your Mac keyword. Once you do that, you’ll see Deeper’s application window. By default there are 10 different panes that you can go through and customize. It would take forever to go through all Deeper’s options, so I’ll just mention the ones that are most useful.

Note: Deeper will make adjustments immediately (when you enable/disable an option). However, you’ll have the chance to cancel or confirm beforehand. For instance when changing Finder options, Deeper will restart the Finder each time you enable or disable an individual option.

General

Graphics effects – Enabling this will turn on a zooming effect similar to the scale effect used for the Dock; if disabled, windows will open instantly. You will find this option in most of the other preference panes as well.

CrashReporter – This allows you to change what happens when an application quits unexpectedly.

Basic mode displays an alert message, allowing you to reopen the application and send a report to Apple. Developer mode displays an alert message along with debug information. Server mode doesn’t display a message and instead stores the Crash report.

Screen captures – Mac OS X comes with a screenshot utility. You can change the screen capture file format from the default PNG file type to something else. Choose between: BMP, GIF, JPEG, JPEG 2000, OpenEXR, PDF, TGA or TIFF.

You know how screen captures are automatically saved to your desktop? Well, with Deeper you can change the path from your desktop to any location. Just click the “Select” button and choose a folder. Likewise, you can change the default name of your screen captures from “screen shot, date, time” to something else.

Desktop background – You can display the full path of your desktop’s background picture right in the center of your desktop. You can also choose to animate your desktop background, but unfortunately you can only do this with OS X installed backgrounds.

Misc. options – Are you annoyed with the alert message that pops up anytime you first open an app that has been downloaded from your browser? If so, you can disable that alert message here.

Did you know that when you hold down a key on your keyboard, a list of accented letters appears on the screen (much like in iOS)? Whether you use this feature or not, it can be disabled here as well.

Preferences panes – Would you like to change the settings of the Archive Utility app or the Network Link Conditioner utility? If so, you can choose to install one or both of those panels here.

Note: If you want to uninstall any preference panes, you can do so by right clicking on its icon in the toolbar and hiding it, or simply hold the control key while left clicking on the icon.

Finder

Misc. options – If you’d like to show hidden files and folders, you can enable that here. You can also choose to show file paths in the window title (seen in the screenshot below), turn on/off text selection in Quick Look, and turn on/off a confirmation warning when you change a file extension.

Text selection in Quick Look is extremely useful and in many cases will save you the trouble of opening documents, and boost productivity.

Finder menus – Would you like to show or hide certain items in Finder’s menus? You can do so here. You can also add an “Extras” menu (in the menu bar) and choose what to show on it.

Dock

Appearance and Effects – If you’re bored with the look of the Dock, you can change it: choose 3D with mirror or 2D with transparency.

You’re already familiar with the Genie and Scale effects when minimizing windows, but Deeper adds a new effect called Suck. It works just as expected: the minimized window is sucked into the Dock as if being pulled down by a vacuum.

I’m sure you’re also familiar with the bottom, left and right positions of the Dock, but Deeper lets you change the alignment as well. Instead of having the Dock centered, you can also anchor it on the left or right side of the screen.

Misc. options –  There are some cool options that you may want to enable here such as: only show running apps; use transparent icons for hidden apps; lock icon size (prevents resizing); lock Dock content (prevents moving and removing icons); and display delay – increase/decrease the display delay when automatically hiding the Dock.

Stacks – Deeper adds a new kind of menu called “List” to the stacks on the right side of the Dock. You can zoom in and out (there are 5 different sizes) using Command and the + (plus) or – (minus) button.

You can also turn on a mouse-over effect for stacks displayed as a grid. This adds a nice little background to selected items – as seen in the screenshot above where Chromium.app is being moused over.

Other stack options include adding a new recent/favorite items stack (to the left or right side of your current stacks). You get to select which type of items you’d like to appear here. You can also add extra spacing between icons.

Other Options

There are many other options that you can enable and disable for QuickTime, Safari, Mail, iTunes, Login, Spotlight and Misc apps (like iCal, AirDrop, Dashboard). A few other options worth pointing out are:

  • iTunes pane – You may want to completely turn off the iTunes store, enable half-star ratings (give a items 3.5 stars instead of just 3 or 4), and turn on Dock notifications (display song name and artist in a bubble over the Dock icon).
  • Safari pane – You may want to turn off the image cache, turn on single window mode (force “new window” links to open in new tabs instead), and enable the hidden Develop menu.
  • Mail pane – You may want to display emails as TEXT instead of HTML when available, increase and decrease the font size, and turn on graphic effects when sending and replying to messages.
  • Login pane – You may want to change the background and logo, hide certain commands or menu items, and change the startup mode (normal, safe mode, verbose or single user).
  • Spotlight pane – You may want to disable indexing of the startup disk, delete your existing index, turn off dictionary definitions and the calculator, and show/hide Spotlight’s icon in the menu bar.

The Deeper Help guide (help menu -> Deeper help) is also great to have open as you’re going through each pane because it explains all options in details. This way you’ll know exactly what you’re turning on/off.

Do you use Deeper on your Mac? What are your favorite things to enable or disable using Deeper?

Charnita has been a Freelance Writer & Professional Blogger since 2008. As an early adopter she loves trying out new apps and services. As a Windows, Mac, Linux and iOS user, she has a great love for bleeding edge technology. You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.

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