This App Allows You to Use Your Mac Without Even Touching Your Mouse
Most tasks are faster with the keyboard than with the mouse, but not every app is built with the keyboard in mind. This is where Shortcat comes to the rescue. This free Mac app lets you quickly search for and click items like buttons, links, and fields in apps with just a few keystrokes. Of course, there is a bit of a learning curve, but once you get over it, it can speed up almost everything you do on your computer.
Shortcat is launched using a keyboard shortcut – CMD-Shift-Space by default. Launch this shortcut and you’ll see a search bar and yellow boxes with two-letter codes for everything in the menu bar and for every clickable item in the current window.
Find an item on the screen, either by entering a two-letter code or simply typing the item you are looking for. When you see the item you want to “click” on, simply press Enter – the result will be the same as if you moved the mouse and clicked that item. You are not limited to clicking the mouse: you can double-click by pressing Enter twice quickly, or right-click while holding Control while pressing Enter.
This works with native Mac apps, which is to be expected, but I was happy to learn that it also works in web browsers. For example, you can find a link you want to open and then press Enter to open it.
This works not only in the browser, but also in Electron applications. It’s okay if you don’t know what this means – it’s a relatively obscure thing – but to simplify it, Electron apps are essentially just websites running in a special browser. Slack works exactly like many other apps these days.
I admit, this is a niche app, but it annoys me. Keeping your hand on the keyboard is generally more ergonomic and much faster than reaching for the mouse. When Shortcat is running, I find myself gripping the mouse a lot less, which I really like.