Creating Links Directly To System Settings

You can use Shortcuts and URL Schemes to create quick links directly to parts of System Settings. You can put these links in the Menu Bar, Dock, or create a keyboard shortcut. You can also do this on the iPhone and iPad. For the list of links, see https://macmost.com/mac-settings-links

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how you can setup direct links into System Settings on your Mac. 
While you're working on your Mac sometimes you need to go into System Settings to examine or change a setting. It could also take several steps to get to where you want. For instance, I go to the Apple Menu here and go to System Settings and then I can choose one of the sections here on the left. I can go right to a section like Desktop & Dock and it's not that hard. But sometimes you need to go down a few steps like in General and then from General down to Airdrop & Handoff. Other times it is even more than that. For instance, to get to the Text Replacements you need to scroll down to Keyboard. Select Keyboard and then look for Text Replacements button. Click that and then it brings up the List of Text Replacements. It can be a real pain to get to a section like this quickly if you want to make a change.
Fortunately, there is a way to create a shortcut to it and then have that in the Menu Bar, in the Dock, or even a Keyboard Shortcuts.
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To do that you want to use the Shortcuts App on your Mac. We're going to create a very simple shortcut. In fact it will only have one Action in it. I'm going to click the Plus button here at the top of the Shortcuts App. Create a new shortcut and I'm going to search here for the Action. Now there is a section here for actions having to do with System Settings. But these have to do with setting or toggling a specific system setting. Not getting into the System Settings App. You can, of course, use the Open App Action here and then have it open System Settings. But it doesn't take you down any deeper. 
Instead we're going to go to an unlikely Action. Open URL. Now this you would normally use to open up a webpage. But in this case we're going to use something special to actually have it trigger going into System Settings. So I'm going to add this in here. It just has this type of URL. So you can type a webpage here to open that webpage. So instead we're going to use something called URL Schemes to instead of triggering Safari, trigger an app. As a matter of fact you use URL Schemes when you're browsing the web. HTTP: is a kind of URL or URI scheme. Instead of HTTP we're going to use this one right here, x-apple.systempreferences and then a colon, just like the colon after HTTP. This will tell your system not to open up the browser but instead open up System Settings, which used to be called system preferences. Now we need to tell it where to go. 
If we were to just use this it actually works to open up System Settings by itself. I'll run this and you can see it does open up System Settings but it doesn't take it to any place in particular. As a matter of fact it's kind of random as to where it takes you. We want to go to a specific section. As an example let's choose the Apple Intelligence & Siri section right here. It would be great to go right to that. So, we're going to put something after the colon here. What we're going to put is the address for that section, which is com.apple.Siri. Just like that. Now when we run it, it will open up System Settings and take us right to this section. Let's try another one. Let's have it go right to Wallpaper, for instance. Now as you might guess the way to get there is com.apple.wallpaper. When I run this it does open up to the Wallpaper page. 
But not all sections are that obvious. I've compiled a list of them here and tested them and you can see some of them are pretty obvious. Like here is to Network settings. But some of them not so much. Like here's to the Apple Account Settings. You can see it is a little longer there. Some of them hold remnants of the past names of the sections or the past way things were configured. So there's a lot of different ones to look at. This table will hopefully get you to where you want to go. Also, you can get deeper into some. 
For instance, let's say you wanted to get to the Accessibility Zoom Section. If I go into System Settings here you can see I have to go into Accessibility and then I find Zoom right here. Now to get to that using a URL I would use com.apple.Accessibility and then question mark Zoom. So let's copy that and then I'm going to change this to go there and now when I launch this it will take us to that section. Now let's look at getting to Text Replacements which requires clicking a button usually. If we look at the list here we'll find Text Replacements near the bottom. It's right here and you can see it uses one of those question marks there and then uses TextReplacements, all as one word, no space there between them. So now if I were to change this, like that, and then run it it will not only open up System Settings and go to Keyboard, but it will act like you clicked that button. So you're now right in Text Replacements. 
So that's great except that you have to open Shortcuts and then run this shortcut to do it. However, you can make it much easier than that. First, let's assign a name and an icon to this. So I'll just call this Text Replacements, because that is what is does. It takes you there. Then I'm going to click on the icon here. I'm going to choose a regular icon, instead of the Safari one there that it gave us because we were using Open URL. I'm going to search for something that looks like settings open gear, like that, let's give it a color like purple, like that. So now I've got a good icon and name. I'm going to go to the Details here and under Details one thing I can do is Pin In Menu Bar. This adds it to this menu here. There's Text Replacements. So I can just select that in the Menu Bar at any time in any app and it takes me there. 
I can also go to File and then Add It To Dock. All this will do is add it to the dock here and you can see it right there. I can click on that and it will run and take me to Text Replacements. But I can also Control Click this in the Dock and go to Option and then Show In Finder. Now it takes me to my Applications Folder. Not the System Applications Folder, but the one in my User Folder. So I can take this little app here and move it anywhere I want. I can put it in some other folder or put it on the Desktop. Any place I want. I can run this app and it will trigger the shortcut and take me into System Settings. 
Now I can set a keyboard shortcut for this as well. I'm going to click Add Keyboard Shortcut. It's going to select Use As Quick Action & Services Menu. Then I'm going to assign a keyboard shortcut. So let's use Control Option Command r. R is easy to remember because replacements. Now I'm going to be able to use that keyboard shortcut. I'll even quit the shortcuts app here and I'll be working in something else. Let's say Notes here and I decide I want to set a Text Replacement. Let's use Control Option Command and r. It will run that shortcut and take me right to where I want in System Setting. 
Now I know I'm going to get people asking about the iPhone and whether or not you can do this there. You can! You can use Shortcuts, you can use the Open URL action, but you have to use different links in iOS and iPad OS. So for instance here is an example and it is taking you to the same place. Text Replacements. But here it is actually a completely different path and it is called User Dictionary. But the result is it will get you to the same place. If I run this it will open up Settings and go to that section. I'll keep my page focused on macOS but it at the bottom I'll link to another page that shows you some of the URL's for iOS. 
So you can create single action shortcuts to do this but you can also put them in longer shortcuts that do various other things as well. You can use these same URL Schemes in Shell-scripts, Apple Scripts, and JAVA Script for automation if you like. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

For the list of links, see https://macmost.com/mac-settings-links.

Comments: 6 Responses to “Creating Links Directly To System Settings”

Jim E Goddard

2 weeks ago

Another great video.

Joel D Canfield

My Mini is old; still running Monterey. Is it possible these shortcuts/links won't work on Monterey? I've tried opening with Terminal, and creating a shortcut in the app, and both open the System Settings, but don't go to the correct setting.

I put this in Terminal

open "x-apple.systempreferences:com.apple.Keyboard?TextReplacements"

and used only the part inside the quotes for the URL in the Shortcuts app.

Chris C.

Nice work Gary! This is the kind of content that keeps me watching these videos. Question: Since Settings is an app, I'm assuming that other apps must also use URL schemes? How can I find the URLs (URIs?), and how to use them? I love the idea of creating a shortcut that takes me to a specific place within an app.

Gary Rosenzweig

Joel: Yes, these wouldn't be the correct URLs for an older system.

Chris: Yes, some other apps use URL Schemes. Finding them is a matter of exhaustive searches on the web, if they are even posted at all.

Art Busbey

Thanks Gary. I had absolutely no idea one could do this.

Creating Links Directly To System Settings

Comments: 6 Responses to “Creating Links Directly To System Settings”

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