How can I add a Keyboard Shortcut to a quick action?
I am using CustomShortcuts and a search for the “Remove Background” quick action reveals nothing. Remove Background is a Pixelmator Pro feature & the quick action allows you to remove the background of an image without opening the application. Am I able to add a keyboard shortcut to this?
Thanks!
I want to be able to press a button and remove the background of the image, it will also be nice to get a bunch of quick actions and bind them all to keyboard shortcuts.
Also – Do you know of any applications that add useful quick actions?
Thanks so much!
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Undertaker01
I don't know what "CustomShortcuts" is. Is that a third-party app or extension of some sort? If so, you'll need to contact that developer for support if it isn't working as you expect.
As far as using Pixelmator Pro's Remove Background feature with just the keyboard, the Quick Action won't work. You can't get to the Quick Action with just the keyboard. But you can get to a Shortcut (created in the Shortcuts app) with the keyboard. And Pixelmator Pro also provides a Remove Background Shortcuts action.
So technically you can build a Shortcut that does this, and assign it as a Service to the Finder, and then add a keyboard shortcut for that. But it will take some work. You'd need to accept the file as input, get the image from the file, apply Remove Background, then save the image as a separate file.
I have something like that here: https://macmost.com/macos-shortcuts-add-a-watermark-to-an-image.html
You would just need to change this to use the Pixelmator Pro action instead of the part about adding the watermark.
Now as to whether all of this work is worth it is another matter. Right+click and select Remove Background takes 2 seconds. After creating a keyboard shortcut, that would be 1 second. If it takes you 30 minutes to work on building the Shortcut, then you'd need to do this 1,800 times to make your time back.
For for other applications that add Quick Actions, it is hard to say. Apps like Pixelmator Pro will add some, but other app developers don't include Quick Actions. Just look at apps that you use and see what they add. It depends on your definition of "useful" and what sort of work you do. Look into learning Shortcuts because you can make your own.
CustomShortcuts replaces finder's "App Shortcuts" preference pane with a UI it does nothing more than autofill what exists in the menu bar & some other simple things.
I would do this 1,800 times - I have about that many icons and graphics that I've removed the background from. I create icons for my Alfred workflows, Stream Deck, folders & YouTube Thumbnails. I use shortcuts mapped to a button on Stream Deck as a way of remembering to use that thing more frequently, else I'll forget about it.
Undertaker01: System Preferences, Keyboard, Shortcuts works great. Why would you need a third-party app? If all it does is the same thing, then that explains why it won't help you here. Quick Actions aren't in the menu bar so you can't create a shortcut to them.
I have hundreds of keyboard shortcuts remapped on various applications and sorting through them can be a bit much on the system preferences pane. I asked the question because I wanted to know if it could be done in MacOS before trying to find a workaround just incase I was missing something simple.
Thanks for all of the help, Gary!