There are apps we use, apps we use very often, and apps we spend most of the day on. Of course we have them all in the Dock, but there is an easier, faster and more comfortable way to open the applications we use the most on our Mac: use a keyboard shortcut.
The convenience of the Shortcuts app
When it comes to productivity, every second counts. Some apps that we constantly open and close throughout the day are great candidates for being able to be opened in the easiest way. Using the Shortcuts app
This First we need to create the shortcut which asks the system to open the applications we need. The steps for this are as follows:
- We open the application shortcuts on our Mac.
- We touch the “+” to create a new shortcut.
- we touch Shortcut name and write something like “Open [Nombre de la app]”.
- In the search box on the right sidebar, we write “open”.
- We double click on open app.
- we touch Application and we select the application that we want to open.
Good. We have already created our shortcut. Visually we should have something very similar to the screenshot just above these lines. A shortcut that, when executed, simply opens the application we requested. If the application is already open, takes us to the window of it
Now let’s add the keyboard shortcut to be able to execute this shortcut as quickly as possible. The steps to do this, based on what we have so far, are as follows:
- We touch the button in the form of three adjustment sliders in the upper right part of the window where we see the shortcut.
- we touch Add keyboard shortcuts.
- We press the keys that we want to use.
- Press Enter (↵).
That’s it. We will see something like the screenshot above. We can now test the shortcut. Simply, we press the keys that we have just configured and observe how the application we designated opens instantly
We can use this shortcut from anywhere in the system. From the desktop and from any application. Also if we use full screen applications. So this new keyboard shortcut, important here do not configure any that are already in use on the system— will serve as quick direct access to our reference applications.
If we are going to open more than one, it is a good idea to assign a keyboard shortcut that involves a number. So something like Command (⌘) + Shift (⇧) + A + 1 (then 2, 3, 4) opens, in order, our reference apps, much like keyboard shortcuts to open Safari’s favorites . A fast, comfortable and soon we will develop muscle memory to have our most important applications in a second.
Picture | Mikaela Shannon
