8 Mac Shortcut Actions You’ll Actually Use

Apple Shortcuts make it easy to create workflows using visual coding blocks on Mac, iPhone, and iPad. While this feature still lacks the power of Automator or AppleScript, it is still quite useful. Here are some example workflows you can use on macOS, each of which you can edit and duplicate to create your own.

How to Add and Activate Mac Shortcuts

The shortcuts linked below launch in the macOS Shortcuts app when you click on them. You can then add them to your Mac with one click. Some of them were created by users of communities like r/Shortcuts on Reddit and RoutineHub, others were created or modified by How-To Geek writers.

Many of them are launched from the Shortcuts menu item, while others appear in the right-click Quick Actions menu. You can also activate them directly from the Shortcuts app if you want, where you can edit existing shortcuts, add new ones from the gallery, or remove workflows you no longer need.

Low Power Mode On and Low Power Mode Off

Reddit user u/MrVegetableMan has created shortcuts to turn Low Power Mode on and off that work using a shell script. You will need to enable “Allow scripts to run” under Shortcuts > Settings > Advanced and grant root access on first launch for this setting to work. Once you’re done, you can activate these shortcuts from the menu bar.

You can check your current status by clicking on the battery indicator, which will notify you whether Low Power Mode is enabled. You can enable Low Power Mode manually, but it requires a few more clicks than using a simple menu bar shortcut. Learn more about what Low Power Mode does and which models support it.

Easy time tracking

Want to track how much time you spend on a project? The Simple Time Tracking shortcut lets you record multiple activities in a text note in the Apple Notes app. For best results, you’ll need to edit the workflow by first adding it and then double-clicking on it to edit.

In the List section, you’ll see items like “One” and “Two”, which you can change to actions like “Research” or “Reading” depending on what you’re tracking (add as many as you like ). The shortcut will create a note called Time Logging Label Data, but if you’d rather save the note with a different name, change it in the Find (All Notes) Where and Create Note With actions to match your own name. scheme.

Finally, you can change the log data format in the Text section at the bottom of the workflow. You can start a workflow using a shortcut in the menu bar, and every time you do so, it will ask you what time you started, how long you spent on the task, and if there are any notes you want to write down . Each log will be added to the same note, so they are all in one place.

Switch desktop icons

It’s nice to have a clean desktop with no visible icons, but it’s also a little impractical since the desktop is a convenient place to dump files, access mounted disk images, and store screenshots.

You can now quickly toggle desktop icons on and off using the Switch Desktop Icons shortcut created by @NCC-1701-A on RoutineHub. It’s easily accessed through the menu bar, but to do so you need to enable “Allow scripts to run” under Shortcuts > Settings > Advanced.

Close all applications

If you carefully close applications before restarting or putting your Mac to sleep, closing each one individually can be difficult. Use the Quit All Apps shortcut to kill the section, or consider editing it to add an exception.

You can also change this to the Quit Everything But Safari shortcut (or app of your choice) if you do this often.

Close all applications except these

The shortcut above may be too complex for many situations. If you’re the kind of person who realizes you have a lot of apps open that you forgot to close but are still working on something, use this shortcut to quickly clean up your Mac desktop.

This comes courtesy of How-To Geek writer Kipp Burrows. To do this, you need to first download a free app called Actions from the App Store. You can then follow Kipp’s guide to setting up the shortcut so that every time you launch it, you’ll be prompted to uncheck any apps you no longer need to open, so you can close them all at once.

Count characters and count words

Highlighted by Alexander Kassner on X (Twitter)This simple shortcut can be accessed from the Services context menu in almost any application (including Safari). Select the text you want to count, then choose Tools > Count Characters (or Count Words) to see the result.

While the original shortcut was designed for character counting, we’ve duplicated and tweaked it a bit to create a word count shortcut instead.

Force Mac apps to open minimized

It’s not so much a workflow that you run, but an automation that uses shortcuts to execute a script that you can run when you log in. This is another creation from How-To Geek author Kipp Burrows, and it requires some tweaking. The good news is that you can use this feature to customize it just the way you like, so that your favorite apps start minimized every time you log in.

Read Kipp’s article to walk through the installation process, which includes enabling “Allow scripts to run” and creating a list of applications before changing your login settings using the Mac Terminal and nano text editor.

Open applications and documents, ready to go

If you don’t like the idea of ​​launching the same apps every time you start your Mac, but still need to quickly enable Work Mode, try this shortcut idea from How-To Geek contributor Dan Hellier. Follow the instructions to add all your work apps and documents to a shortcut, then open them all at once by launching the shortcut with one click.

This works great if you assign your apps to specific desktops so everything opens in the right place.

Add automation to macOS shortcuts with Shortery

The free Shortery app for macOS takes macOS shortcuts to the next level. You can use this app to automate many of your workflows by adding 17 triggers to launch shortcuts, including:

While Shortery is free, you’ll need to upgrade to Shortery Pro ($9.99, in-app purchase) to get the full feature set.

Use Shortcuts on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch Too

Shortcuts are a universal part of the Apple ecosystem. The Shortcuts Gallery has a great selection to get you started: custom workflows that offer all sorts of benefits, like boosting productivity, greatly expanding your iPhone’s set of action buttons, or doing things like logging status data with two taps.

You can use the same app to create useful automations that trigger when you open apps, connect Bluetooth devices, or charge your iPhone.