Settings
Customize MACE to fit your workflow.
Four panes: General, Appearance, Advanced, and Updates.
Open Settings from the MACE menu bar (MACE ▸ Settings, or ⌘,). Pick a pane from the sidebar on the left.
Every option shows its shipped default. Change one and an orange Restore Default badge appears beside it, so you can always see what you have moved away from and put it back with a click. To roll back more than one option at a time, see Resetting Settings.
Each setting below carries the same control you see in the app, drawn in its default position. A blue switch means the option ships turned on, a grey switch means it ships turned off, and a menu shows the value MACE starts with. Rows that run an action show the button you click instead.
The controls on this page work. Flip a switch and the orange Restore Default badge appears, exactly as it does in MACE. Turn Holiday Logo off and watch Logo Override wake up. Nothing here touches your copy of the app, so click away.
General
Projects
Automatically save changes to compliance baselines as you work. Your progress is written out continuously, so nothing waits on a manual save.
Restore preferences for all four hubs (Compliance, Audit, Documentation, and Build) when you reopen MACE, including sidebar widths and filter states.
When you create a project, MACE adds a .gitignore and .gitattributes, then removes the inherited custom/.gitignore so your edits are tracked. For a project you already have, use File ▸ Make Project Git-Ready instead.
mSCP Rules
Fetch the latest rules from GitHub every time the app launches, so you always have the newest mSCP baseline rules without checking manually.
Offer beta OS versions from the mSCP dev branches, such as macOS 27, when you create a project, and keep their rules downloaded for offline use. See Beta Testers for what to expect.
Audits
Save completed audits to the project so you can reload them without re-running checks. Only the most recent audit is kept, so each new audit overwrites the one before it.
Keep your per-rule comments when you start a new audit instead of clearing them. Turn this off if you would rather begin every audit with a clean slate.
Appearance
Theme
Choose Light, System, or Dark. System follows your macOS appearance setting, including the automatic switch between light and dark at sunrise and sunset.
Sync Indicator
Remove the sync status pill from the compliance editor title bar for a quieter workspace.
Replace the generic "Output Drift" label with colored icons, so you can tell at a glance which outputs are affected.
Logo
Show seasonal and holiday themed logos on the main menu. MACE ships with more than 75 seasonal, holiday, and character logos that switch automatically by date.
Pick one specific logo to use all year instead of the automatic rotation. Turn off Holiday Logo above to enable this menu. Turning it back on returns the override to Default.
Today's pick: DefaultEnjoying the logos as much as we do? Click Download, choose where to put them, and the entire collection is saved to your Mac. Use them however you like when you talk about MACE. See Share the Project for the whole set.
A little something for those of us who live in apps like this every day, instead of the same static images we're used to. None of them were ever designed to offend; they're a lighthearted way to celebrate people from all walks of life. Apps should be more fun, and I hope MACE brings a bit of that.
Advanced
Every row in this pane runs an action rather than storing a preference, so there is nothing here to reset.
Storage
Reveal the MACE application support folder in Finder, where MACE keeps its data. Useful for troubleshooting or for backing up your settings.
Remove cached rule data to free memory or fix issues. Reach for this if MACE feels slow or shows stale data.
Remove the mSCP rules cache so the next launch downloads a fresh copy. Use this to pull the latest rules or to recover from a corrupted download.
Environments
MACE keeps its own Python and Ruby environments so builds never depend on whatever is installed system wide. Reset one if a build fails with a dependency error.
Remove the mSCP Python virtual environment so it installs fresh. MACE rebuilds it on the next run that needs it.
Remove the installed gems so they install fresh. Handy when a documentation build fails on a gem that did not install cleanly.
Privileged Helpers
MACE installs small privileged helpers for the tasks that need elevated rights. Removing one is safe, because MACE offers to reinstall it the next time it is needed.
Remove the privileged helper that MACE uses to install automatic updates.
Remove the privileged helper that MACE uses to run audit checks.
Updates
Look for a new version every time MACE starts, so you hear about a release without going looking for it.
Choose which updates you receive. Stable is production ready and offers stable releases only, while Beta gives you early access to both beta and stable releases. Read Beta Testers before you switch.
Resetting Settings
MACE gives you two levels of reset. Neither one touches your projects, only the preferences in this window.
The General, Appearance, and Updates panes each end with a Reset … Settings to Defaults button that restores every option in that pane and leaves the rest alone. Advanced has no reset button, because it holds actions rather than preferences.
Reset All Settings… in the bottom bar of the Settings window restores every option in every pane at once. It asks you to confirm first, so a stray click will not wipe your preferences.