HOW TO Save time with HotKey

1 Install the app

Install HotKey from the Mac App Store and click Open when it’s installed. You should now see this screen, which is the HotKey preferences window. There are already three predefined hotkeys for Mail, Terminal and the Clipboard.

2 Create a+shortcut

Click on the ‘ ’ icon to create a new shortcut. HotKey will now ask you to choose the app you want to create a shortcut for, and it’ll open the Applications folder. We’re going to create a shortcut for our first app, Ableton.

3 Pick your keys

The next step is to decide on the shortcut you want to use for this app. You do that by simply pressing the keys you want to use, such as ç+ß and a letter. Let’s see what happens if we pick ç+A as our shortcut for Ableton.

4 Don’t duplicate

Oops! ç+A is, of course, the system-wide shortcut for Select All. HotKey will do this any time you try to use a keyboard combination that already exists. You can still use it if you like, but we wouldn’t recommend that.

5 Explore the options

Each app gets an Options button. This enables you to include or exclude this shortcut from the HotKey menu bar icon. If Toggle Visibility is enabled, using the shortcut will switch focus to or from the app if it’s already open.

6 Change the settings

You can remove shortcuts by selecting them and then clicking the ‘–’ icon, and you can also decide whether HotKey should appear in the Dock and whether its menu bar drop-down should use big or small icons.

7 Add a folder

Let’s create a folder shortcut. Creating shortcuts for folders is just like creating shortcuts for apps. Browse to the folder you want to create a shortcut for and then click on the Choose button to add it to your HotKey collection.

8 Select your shortcut

As with apps, you’ll now need to create the key combination you want to use in future. We’ve gone for ç+ß+H. Pressing that shortcut when the folder is open but behind something else will bring it to the front.

9 Use the menu

HotKey’s menu bar icon provides instant access to all your shortcuts (unless you’ve deliberately excluded any) for fast access to your favourite apps and folders. You’ll wonder how you ever managed without it.