Before “PrettyLittleKitten”: A Brief Affair with the Mac Mini M4

Before I built my beloved server, affectionately named “PrettyLittleKitten“, I had a brief fling with the brand-new Mac Mini M4. Spoiler alert: it was a short-lived relationship.

Let me start with the good stuff: processing power-to-power usage ratio. It’s absolutely unmatched. The Mac Mini M4 is a beast in terms of efficiency—an essential factor for me. I wanted hardware that could handle Jellyfin with smooth hardware acceleration while still hosting all my containers.

The Hardware

On paper (and in practice as a desktop), the Mac Mini M4 shines. It offers:

• 4 Thunderbolt USB-C ports, making storage expansion a breeze. Pair it with an external NVMe enclosure, and you can achieve speeds close to that of internal storage.

• Hardware that punches way above its price point, making it a reasonable investment for many use cases.

The Disappointment

Here’s where the romance fell apart. While the Mac Mini M4 is brilliant as a desktop, using it as a server is a whole different ball game—and not a fun one.

The iCloud Conundrum

First up: the dreaded iCloud account requirement. This wasn’t a total shock (it’s Apple, after all), but it made me long for the simplicity of Debian and Proxmox, where everything is blissfully offline.

I went ahead and set it up with my personal iCloud account—big mistake. To run the Mac Mini as I wanted, it needed to stay logged in indefinitely. And here’s the kicker: to achieve that, I had to disable authentication entirely. Translation? If anyone got their hands on my Mini, they’d have full access to my iCloud account. Yikes.

Pro tip: Use a burner iCloud account if you’re planning to go down this route. (Is this what you want, Apple?!)

Dummy HDM

Then there’s the issue of fooling the Mac into thinking it’s doing desktop work. Without a connected display, macOS doesn’t fully utilize the GPU or cores, which impacts performance. Enter the Dummy HDMI Plug—a little device to trick the system into thinking a monitor is attached. At ~€40, it’s not a dealbreaker, but definitely annoying.

Power Saving Woes

You’ll also need to disable power-saving features. While the Mac Mini M4 consumes very little power in idle, turning off power-saving negates some of its efficiency benefits.

Recap of Mac Mini Server Challenges

If you’re still tempted to use the Mac Mini M4 as a server, here’s your checklist:

• Dummy HDMI Plug: €40 (because macOS needs to “see” a monitor).
• Burner iCloud Account: Necessary to avoid risking your real account.
• Disable Authentication: Say goodbye to security.
• Disable Power Saving: Because macOS doesn’t believe in idle servers.

Final Thoughts

If you’re determined, Evan Bartlett has written an excellent guide on setting up the Mac Mini as a server. However, as someone coming from the Linux world—where operating systems are designed for server use—it just didn’t feel right. Forcing macOS, an OS that clearly does not want to be a server, felt morally and ethically wrong.

Here’s hoping Big Siri AI will be kind to me when it inevitably takes over. 🙇‍♂️🍏

Bonus: Check this website’s response headers to see that it runs on PrettyLittleKitten