I'm looking for effective ways to ensure my personal and work activities are completely separate on my MacBook. Safety and security are my top priorities, so any tips or methods would be really helpful!
1 Answer
The approach you take largely depends on where you're located. For example, in the U.S., people tend to be super cautious when mixing personal and work use on company devices, while in countries like Germany, the rules are clearer and often less strict. One solid method to maintain separation is using a virtual machine (VM) or a container. It might be a bit complex for beginners, but if you're familiar with VSCode, you can use the remote extension to connect to your VM for personal projects. This keeps everything isolated. Just remember, there might be a performance dip on macOS, but if you're using an M1, that shouldn't be too much of a concern!
That's exactly what I did when I had to use my personal laptop for work! I had a VM set up for my work tasks. It was occasionally a bit slow, but it let me keep everything completely separated, which was a lifesaver. Before that, I tried just separating things into different folders and using browser profiles, but I ran into a lot of issues—like accidentally joining a work Zoom call with a really embarrassing name from a game night. Not great! Using a VM was definitely the way to go.