Using Spotlight To Access the Menu Bar

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at accessing the Menu Bar using Spotlight. 

macOS Tahoe brought us a whole new Spotlight or as it is sometimes called the Spotlight Menu. This is what you get when you use Command Space and it brings up the Spotlight field right in the middle of your screen. You can search for files. You can launch apps, and with macOS Tahoe you can now look at your Clipboard History. You can run Shortcuts and do a variety of other things. One of those things that you can do that hasn't gotten much attention is you can use Menu Bar commands through Spotlight. This gives you one way to access all the commands of the Menu Bar but by typing on your keyboard instead of using your pointing device to go up to the Menu Bar.

So, for example here I am in the Finder and I'm in List View here. Let's say I want to switch to Column View. I've got a button here to do it. I also can go to View and then switch to As Columns. Also if I happen to know the keyboard shortcut I can do that. That's Command 3. Let's say I don't know the keyboard shortcut. I still want to use the keyboard to do this. So, this command here is simply As Columns. I can actually type this Menu Bar command just using the keyboard thanks to Spotlight. So I'm going to use Command Space and then I'm going to type As Column. As I do notice the results that are returned are from a variety of different things. I'll get files, webpages, all sorts of stuff. But this one hit right here shows a little Menu Bar icon and it even shows the icon of the app. I can see here As Column in Finder View, which is up here. So by typing As Column I didn't have to finish typing it. I just had to type it enough so it's the top one. I can now press Return and you can see how the Menu Bar lit up for a second there with View and it actually switched to Column View. It is the same thing as if I had selected View As Columns. Let's try As List and Return and you can see how I was able to use the Menu Bar without knowing the keyboard shortcut and without going to my mouse or trackpad.

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Now this is my favorite example that I use whenever I have to show how to find a Menu item that's very hidden. Let's say I want what I just typed to be superscript. I'm going to use Shift and Left Arrow to select it. Now, if I go to Format I can go to Font. Then I can go to Baseline and there is Superscript. That's a lot I had to know. I had to know to start with the Format Menu. That it was Font not say text that i had to select next. That the Superscript command is under Baseline. This is where to find it in Pages. I had to go a long way to do this. There is a keyboard shortcut but I didn't know that off the top of my head either. Now I can select this and I get Superscript for the characters that were selected.

But I could do the same thing with Spotlight. I'll do Command Space and I'll type Superscript. I'll just start typing it and as long it is the top one I can use it. If it is not the top one, even after finishing it, I can still use the Down Arrow to go down to it and then Return and it will execute the Menu Bar command.

Now sometimes it gets a little confused when the Menu Bar item changes. So, for instance, if I want to show Preview, which is View, Show Preview I can use Spotlight for that. So I'll do Preview and there's Show Preview. It appeared there for a second. I could use the Arrow Keys to go down to find it and then Return and it works. If I try it again you can see it still says Show Preview but there is no Menu Bar command now Show Preview because now we know it's Hide Preview. So if I were to select this I get this weird error here. So it's not perfect. But eventually if I Delete what I was searching for and search again notice how Hide Preview is now shown. So kind of a Spotlight Menu doesn't update to show that the menu item has changed. You kind of have to clear it out, the Escape Key will work for that, and then find it again.

It doesn't seem to do a good job handling temporary Menu Bar items. For instance, in Safari under Bookmarks you've got a bunch of different Bookmarks. These are all Menu Bar commands. But they are kind of created by your Bookmarks. They are dynamic, not really part of the app. So if I were to search for this you could see I will find, because it is Safari, I will find it as a Bookmark. I'm not going to find it here as a Menu Bar item.

Now here's a tip to get it to work a little bit better. When you just hit Command Space you're doing a general Spotlight Search. So you search for something and it may find the Menu Bar item if you're lucky. But it's going to find a bunch of other stuff. But a quick Command 3 will take you to Actions. Once you're in Actions then there's a lot less for it to find. It can find lots of shortcuts and other special Actions that the Spotlight Menu can access. It also will find Menu Bar commands. But that's it. So you're not going to get mixed in there Bookmarks and Mail Messages and Files and all sorts of other things. So probably it would be a little bit quicker if you do Command Space and then still holding down the Command Key, 3. So Command Space and then 3. Then start typing the Menu Bar command that you're looking for.

You even get this little button up here to indicate that you only want Menu items. Now you can click that, of course, and now you'll just get Menu Items. The idea is not to use the mouse or trackpad. So the fastest way to do it, just using the keyboard, is hold the Command Key down and do Space 3. Then start typing the Menu Item you're looking for. Looks like you need to type about two characters. Then a Right Arrow takes you to Menu Items and a Return selects the Menu Item. Now you're only looking at Menu Items and you can keep typing. So now I can type, like that, and it will quickly get down to exactly what I want without anything else in the way. While that can be faster probably most of us are just going to do Command Space and then type the Menu Bar command and that will work in most cases.

Now there is another way to actually reach any Menu Bar command you want. It doesn't involve Spotlight and it has been around for many years. That's to use the Help Menu. A lot of people think the Help Menu is just for getting to documentation. But the Search Box up here actually will search for all of the menu items. So, if I want to search for Sort By Date Added I can just type some of that there and then I can arrow down to what I want and press Return. The easy way to get to Help is use Command with Shift and then the Slash Key, which is also the question mark key on US keyboards. So, if you have a non-US keyboard then it is probably Command and however else you would type question mark. That goes to the Help Menu directly and the text cursor is blinking in Search. So you can now just start typing and then use the Down Arrow here to find the Menu Bar command you want. I like this better still than Spotlight because it shows you where the Menu item is. So maybe you can use this to learn for next time where it is and you can also see the keyboard shortcut when doing it this way so maybe you can learn the keyboard shortcut as well.

You can learn even more ways to access the Menu Bar with just the keyboard you can go into System Settings and then go to Keyboard and then to Keyboard Shortcuts and then go to Keyboard on the left here. Look for Move Focus to the Menu Bar. Make sure it is turned On and then check to see what it is and customize it if you like. I've got the Default set as Control F2. So now Control F2 will highlight the Apple Menu and I can use the Right Arrow to move over. The Down Arrow to go down and I can select a Menu Item. This also will work if you use fn and then M for Menu. That's kind of hard coded in, in addition to whatever keyboard shortcut you've got set there in System Settings.

Plus, if you use Command Shift and then Slash to get to Search you can use the Left Arrow key and go through the Menu items as well.

So as you can see there are lots of ways to access the Menu Bar using just the keyboard and with macOS Tahoe and Spotlight we have one more. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.