The best tricks of the Shortcuts app for your Mac

shortcuts

Application Apple shortcuts it allows you establish a series of shortcuts, to increase your productivity and speed up the workflow on your computer. Within this app, you will find quite interesting options that will help you skip actions that would take you more time manually, and you can also rely on some very practical tricks. For this reason, today we bring you the best tricks of the Shortcuts app for your Mac.

For all Apple users, one of the most striking features of their devices is the possibility of use several not so well-known options, but that always end up surprising their users. The app Shortcuts It is undoubtedly one of the most versatile and preferred by Internet users, as it brings with it very attractive functions.

These are the best tricks of the Shortcuts app for your Mac

Empty your downloads folder

Active this shortcut from your menu bar, to quickly delete everything in your downloads folder. By default, the shortcut will ask you whether or not you're okay with items being deleted, and then move the content to the Trash.

You can change this behavior (the confirmation request) by opening Aslashes, then you must go to Preferences, look for the option Advanceds, and once here, enable Allow deletion without confirmation. All this only if you don't want to confirm every time you want to delete something. You can also edit the shortcut, and enable Delete immediately in the Delete folder contents action, to skip Trash.

Toggle desktop icons

desk mac icons desktop

It's nice to have a clean desktop with no visible icons, but this It is also impractical since the desktop is a convenient place to dump files, access disk images, and store screenshots. Now you can Quickly turn desktop icons on and off with this shortcut.

It's easily accessible through the menu bar, but requires you to enable Allow execution of scripts in Aslashes. When you do this, go to Preferences, then access the menu Advanced, there you will find the option.

Exit all applications

If you're adamant about closing apps before restarting or putting your Mac to sleep, It can be difficult to close each of them individually. For this, it will be very usefulfor this shortcut for close all apps. You can also consider make some small adjustments, perhaps to add an exception or to put to sleep consecutively.

You can also convert said shortcut in something as "Get out of everything except", and you will add an application of your choice. Of course, this would make sense only if it's something you do frequently. Shortcuts are easy to adjust to your needs, take advantage of them.

Exit all applications It will help you take care of your device by closing all applications before turning it off as recommended, but you will not waste time doing it one by one.

Use split screen between two applications

Split-View-MacBook-Air

There are tons of ways to do this on your phone, but the Shortcut makes it so much easier. It allows you Quickly split screen between two apps, ideal for activating Work Mode when you feel distracted. In its default state, the shortcut will ask you each time which apps you want to choose.

Although you can change this and avoid the question by asking double click on the shortcut in app Aslashes, clicking Application and choosing an application.

As mentioned above, there are many ways to split the screen in this way. In fact, you can use the action Split screen between, to create your own Shortcuts that do the same thing, or one with some extra actions that make your life easier. If you want to know more about it, you can look at this article.

Count characters or count words

This simple shortcut can be activate from the context menu Services, in almost any application, including Safari. It is something quite simple since You just have to highlight the text you want to tell, and then choose the shortcut to see the result. While the original shortcut was designed to count characters, we can duplicate it and modify it slightly to create a shortcut that counts words. Don't know how to modify a shortcut? We will talk about that now.

Quickly access keychain passwords

Keychain-iCloud

In case you are one of the users who prefers to use iCloud Keychain services to store your passwords, you are going to want use this shortcut. Dand this way, it will be easier to quickly access your list of saved passwords, both from iOS and macOS.

You can Activate the shortcut from the menu bar or open it in the Shortcuts app by double-clicking it. Lgame, haz click on Shortcut details, in the right panel and use the button Add Keyboard Shortcut to assign a keyboard shortcut for even faster access.

How can we modify a shortcut from the Shortcuts app itself on your Mac?

To do this, you need to follow some steps that we show you below:

  1. The first thing that is required is that access the Shortcuts app, and in its main window, do Double click on the shortcut you are requesting to run.

  2. Then, in the top region of the shortcut editor that will be visible, where all the actions of said shortcut are also shown, you must click the arrowa that will be visible to you.

  3. When you do this, and with the key Control pressed, you must do Click on the visible Dock Shortcuts icon. Once there, choose a shortcut from the menu that will appear available. Now, click on the option Run shortcut.

The application will carry out all these actions. If, for example, some extra information is requested, a window will be visible where you must access to complete this data. Likewise, if the information requested is private, you must grant permission to provide this information.

If you are looking for a way to make even more of the time you use to work with your Mac, you need to exploit the full potential of the Shortcuts app. We hope that in this article you have found the best Shortcuts app tricks for your Mac. If you think we should mention something else, let us know in the comments. We will be reading you.


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