Don't Click It, Just Press It: A Guide to Creating Custom Keyboard Shortcuts On macOS

for macOS Sequoia

Intro

Have you ever thought, "I wish there was a keyboard shortcut for that"? This guide will teach you how to create a keyboard shortcut for any option in the menu bar, under any menu, including the Apple menu.

What can be turned into a keyboard shortcut?

You can create a keyboard shortcut for all options in the menu bar, as long as you have the exact title of the option. You can interact with a menu option to see how it is spelled.

For options that have an ellipsis (…), use Option+Semicolon. Using three periods (...) will not work. Using the Option+Semicolon shortcuts inputs a single ellipsis character.

Creating a keyboard shortcut

To access the keyboard shortcuts window, do the following:

1. Open System Settings.
2. Select Keyboard from the sidebar.
3. Find the Keyboard Shortcuts button.
   • An easy way to access it is to find the Text Input heading (VO+Command+H once), and navigate to the left to find Keyboard Shortcuts.
4. In the keyboard shortcuts window, select "Application shortcuts" from the sidebar.

The table contains a list of applications to select. You can press VO+\ to expand each app to see its keyboard shortcuts. There is also an Add button.

Pressing the Add button is how you will create a shortcut.

You can select the application you wish for the keyboard shortcut to be applied to.

You then must enter the exact menu title as shown in the menu bar.

It should be noted that you cannot paste the clipboard contents into the text field. This will try to create a shortcut with Command+V.

Once you have entered the menu title, navigate to the keyboard shortcut text field. Once you interact with the text field, press the keys that you want assigned to the keyboard shortcut.

It should be noted that macOS will not let you know if a key conflicts with another keyboard shortcut you have created.

Practical use cases

Creating keyboard shortcuts for menu items can be particularly useful if there is a menu item you frequently use.

For example, I use the proofreading feature of writing tools a lot. I have Control+Shift+R set as the keyboard shortcut. This causes the text to immediately get proofread.

In the menu title text field, I typed exactly "Proofread". I also have other keyboard shortcuts for other writing tools, such as Control+Shift+G to send the text to ChatGPT using the compose tool.

Other examples include:

• Rewrite, Control+Shift+W
• Summarize, Control+Shift+S
• Make list, Control+Shift+L
• Make key points, Control+Shift+K

Other use cases could include creating a shortcut to bring you to software update settings. This is possible because of the View menu.

Even if shortcuts exist for menu options, you can input a new shortcut, and it will be changed.

Conclusion

Creating keyboard shortcuts is easy, and it can enhance workflows, allowing you to get things done more quickly and easily. Any menu item you want to have a keyboard shortcut can have a keyboard shortcut, making this best for apps that don't assign their own keyboard shortcuts, or apps that have complicated shortcuts that you might not be able to press, such as holding down several modifiers, like Command+Control+Option+Shift+an additional key.

I hope you have found this guide useful. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out.