How to Create Custom Keyboard Shortcuts in Mac OS

How to Create Custom Keyboard Shortcuts in Mac OS

Did you know you can create a custom for any menu item on the Mac? You can create keystrokes for common action items across many applications, or even just for a specific menu option in a particular application. Making custom keyboard shortcuts in Mac OS is an excellent power user tool, but despite being robust and highly customizable, its actually quite easy to implement and is helpful for all Mac user levels.

This is an excellent Mac power user tip, and if you find yourself frequently accessing the same menu items within an app or all applications, consider setting up a custom keyboard shortcut for that item to speed up your workflow. This tutorial will walk through the appropriate steps to making a custom keystroke out of a menu item, it works in basically every version of Mac OS too.

This works to create a custom keyboard shortcut in macOS and Mac OS X, the technique is compatible and behaves the same in basically every version of Mac OS system software dating back well over a decade. Here is how this excellent feature works: Note that you must use for menu items to create custom keyboard shortcuts.

That includes any capitalization, punctuation, periods, and precise text the name entered for the keystroke absolutely must match the menu item otherwise the menu keystroke will not work. You must choose a custom keyboard shortcut that does not overlap or interfere with an existing keyboard shortcut in use on the Mac, whether in all applications or in the chosen application, respectively. Once you have finished making your custom keyboard shortcut, go ahead and go to an application and an appropriate scenario to test out the keyboard shortcut.

If you follow the example we use of creating a rename keyboard shortcut, then you simply open any file within an app like TextEdit or Preview (or any other app that supports the File > Rename option) and hit the appropriate keyboard shortcut to initiate that function, in this case its renaming the file that is currently opened and in the foreground. We have used variations of custom keystrokes in many prior tips, including to perform actions like , , versions that removed the keystroke, and . The options are broad and vast, encompassing system functionality, default apps, and third party apps, if its in a menu you can turn it into a keystroke.

A brief explanation on using All Applications versus a specific app when setting up custom keystrokes: Is this a great trick or what? Mac power users have been using custom keyboard shortcuts for many years, but as you can see its not particularly difficult to set these up, so even if youre more of a novice user you should be able to get some use out of this tip. Do you make custom keyboard shortcuts on your Mac? Do you have any particularly helpful keystrokes or keyboard shortcuts you use that youd like to share with other users? Let us know in the comments!