If you want to launch an app using a single key press, you can do it by creating an Automator Quick Action and assigning it a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences. This isn't usually needed for apps we always have running, but can be useful for apps we frequently bring up and then quit when not in use. You have to be careful not to use a name or shortcut that conflicts with any other. You also may find it is a bit flaky when you first create the shortcut.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today I've got another one for those who love keyboard shortcuts. I'm going to show you how to make a keyboard shortcut that will launch any app you want with just one press.
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So there's so many ways to launch apps. You can use the Dock. You can use Launchpad. You can use Spotlight. A lot of those you can do with just the keyboard. But what if you wanted to do it in the ultimate way with just one single press of one key on the keyboard. You can do that but you've got to use Automator to set it up.
I'm going to launch the Automator app and I'm going to create a new document. Now I get a choice of what type of document to create. In Mojave I want to create a Quick Action. Previous to Mojave these were called Services. So I'm going to choose Quick Action and then at the top here I'm going to choose the option No Input Is Received. We don't need any input here. We're just launching an app. We're going to set it to Any Application. We're going to add one single action to this workflow. That's going to be to Launch an Application. You'll find that under Utilities here in the Library. Or you can search here at the top and look for Launch Application.
We're going to drag that over here and add it. Now all you do in Launch Application is you choose an application that you want to launch. So as an example here we're going to choose Calculator. Now we're going to Save it. I'm going to use File Save or Command S and it's going to ask for a name. So we want to give it a name that makes it a unique menu item. It's very important. I'm going to choose the name Launch Calculator. Now I'm going to hit Save. I don't have to worry about where it's saving to because Quick Actions are always saved to a special location on your hard drive.
Now we can test this out by hitting the Run button here and you can see it launches Calculator. So the next step is we want to assign a keyboard shortcut to run that Quick Action. You do that in System Preferences. So we'll go to the Apple menu, System Preferences, and we'll select Keyboard and we want to go to Shortcuts. So here's where you can modify and add keyboard shortcuts that correspond to menu items. So you may say, well what menu item can this correspond to. All we did was create a Quick Action.
Well, Quick Actions will appear if you go to the name of the application you're using, in this case System Preferences, and you look at Services. You'll see here Launch Calculator. That's what we created. It's not just in System Preferences that we'll see that. If we go to the Finder, for instance, we see Finder, Services, Launch Calculator. That's because we said we wanted this Quick Action to be around for all applications. So all we need to do is assign a keyboard shortcut for Launch Calculator since it's a menu item that appears everywhere.
We'll go to App Shortcuts here and we'll hit the Plus button. Now we'll say we want this keyboard shortcut to work in all applications and we want it to look for the menu titled Launch Calculator. So you can see now why we needed a unique menu name for this. If we just called it calculator or calc or something like that it may have conflicted with another menu item at some point. Launch Calculator is pretty unique.
Now we assign a keyboard shortcut. So here you want to use something you also know doesn't conflict with something else. I'm going to use F1. I'm going to hit the F1 key on my keyboard. Now you may not want to use something so simple. For instance if you use PhotoShop or something like that it's already going to have a shortcut assigned to F1. Your shortcut is going to conflict with that. You may want to do something like Command F1, or Command Option F1, or Command Option 1, or something like that. So now we'll hit Add.
Now note that if you have, under Keyboard, if you don't have this checked you're going to have to use the fn key to get F1 to work. But since I have that checked hitting the F1 key won't actually dim the brightness like the little symbol says it will actually act as F1. So now I can test it out by hitting the F1 key on my keyboard and sure enough it brings up Calculator. It will happen anywhere. So if I go into another app, say I go back to Automator here, then F1 will bring up Calculator.
Except sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it just doesn't work. What's happening there is it takes a little while for the apps to catch on. Sometimes you switch to an app for the first time, you hit F1, and it doesn't launch Calculator. Then you go to the Menu, you go to Services, and you see that the Launch Calculator item is there. It says F1. Then you try it again and then it works. Sometimes it takes a little time for it to work. Sometimes you actually have to look at the menu item at least once in the application. Eventually you'll find it does start to work across all applications and you can use that keyboard shortcut to launch your app.
So the next thing you need to do is, of course, add all the apps that you think you need to launch in this way. So you may want to use F1 through F9 to launch a bunch of different apps. Or Command, Option and different numbers or any special keyboard shortcuts you want to get the applications you want to bring up quickly. Most likely you're not going to use this on the applications you use all the time. For instance Safari or Mail or something like that because you'll always have those apps running. But an app like Calculator is actually a good example of an app you may want to bring up really quickly and then quit when you're not using it anymore.

Comments: 5 Responses to “Create a Mac Keyboard Shortcut To Launch Any App”

Ian MacGregor

6 years ago

I have always been reluctant to assign new keyboard shortcuts for fear of interfering with an existing keyboard shortcut. For instance, I want to assign the keyboard shortcut Command+W to launch a web browser. The issue here is that Command+W already exists in many apps and it is used to close a window. By assigning that keyboard shortcut, would the system alert me that the Command+W keyboard shortcut is already in use?

Gary Rosenzweig

Ian: Yes. Try it and you'll see. You get a symbol next to it in System Preferences.

Gary: I tried it, I assigned Command+W for the new Launch Safari automator action (following your tutorial). I quit Safari and pressed Command+W and it launched Safari. I did notice that the close window shortcut changed from Command+W to Command+Shit+W. I removed that keyboard shortcut and Command+W now closes a window as it did before. But, I didn't see any type of warning or error on macOS Mojave 10.14.5.

Ian: I'm not seeing a warning either. But I'm sure there is supposed to be one. Note that Command+Shift+W is close window in Safari because Command+W is close tab.

Gary: Thank you for the confirmation, that lets me know that I didn't damage anything. Yes, Command+Shift+W is close tab, I read the wrong one. I do remember Linux and BSD having warnings for this type of thing.. might be a bug in macOS.

Comments Closed.

Create a Mac Keyboard Shortcut To Launch Any App

Comments: 5 Responses to “Create a Mac Keyboard Shortcut To Launch Any App”

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