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Create a Keyboard Shortcut for Any Menu Action in Any Program
Posted by Adam Pash at 11:45 AM on January 11, 2008
Mac OS X tip: Nothing's more heartbreaking to a keyboard lover than discovering that a common application action is lacking a keyboard shortcut. Luckily OS X makes it wildly simple to add new shortcuts for any action available in the menu bar. Here's how it works:
Open the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane in your System Preferences and click on the Keyboard Shortcuts tab. Click the little plus (+) sign, choose the application you want to assign a shortcut for from the drop-down, then enter the exact name of the menu bar item you want to execute (for example, I want a shortcut to resize an image in Preview, so I'm using "Adjust Size..."). Then just pick your keyboard shortcut, click Add, and voilà—you've successfully added a new shortcut to your Mac. When you open the app, you'll notice that shortcut is even visible next to the item so it'll be easy to remember.
This option should be available for every modern operating system, but unfortunately it's not. Windows users can still turn any action into a keyboard shortcut (specifically, check the Restrict Your Hotkey to a Specific Application section), but it requires a bit more work.
Tags: how to | keyboard shortcuts | mac os x tip | operating systems | top
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
BingleyJoe
Posted 3:21 PM 10/1/08
And here's what you use this feature for:
• Application: Finder
• Menu Title: New Folder
• Keyboard Shortcut: [COMMAND+N]
*mutter* *mutter* change for the sake of change *grumble* *swear*
• Application: Finder
• Menu Title: New Finder Window
• Keyboard Shortcut: [Shift+Command+N]
*chorus of angels cry out in ecstasy as order is restored to the universe*
:)
BingleyJoe
jeffrice
Posted 4:08 PM 10/1/08
Fantastic, I had no idea it was so easy! I keep hitting cmd-H in Firefox instead of cmd-T (Dvorak layout on a QWERTY keyboard) so to be able to map that away to something less easily mistaken is a relief.
jeffrice
nicopolitan
Posted 4:52 PM 10/1/08
ohhhhhhhhhhh.
So _that's_ what it does!
nicopolitan
Quine
Posted 4:52 PM 10/1/08
I love it...but sadly it won't work for leopard's customized terminal window configs (I made a config named Vim and tried to make a shortcut to it this way and it didn't work :( ))
Quine
Nicole Marie
Posted 4:41 PM 10/1/08
Yet another reason I love OS X with all my heart...
Nicole Marie
monster79
Posted 6:53 AM 11/1/08
@BingleyJoe: somebody buy that guy a beer! :) Also, this should resolve the odd omission of a shortcut for "Hide Illustrator" in Adobe CS2. Hide Photoshop? Ctrl-Cmd-H. Hide InDesign? Ctrl-Cmd-H. Hide Illustrator? Can't! Adobe, why you gotta be like that?
monster79
BingleyJoe
Posted 8:53 AM 11/1/08
@Monster79:
• Application: *
• Menu Title: Buy BingleyJoe Beer
• Keyboard Shortcut: Control+Command+B
;)
BingleyJoe
dorktastic
Posted 6:11 PM 10/1/08
Wow, this is big news to me, and I thought I new how to use this OS.
The big for me will be for using MS Powerpoint, which stupidly doesn't make "Group" or "Ungroup" available as a keyboard shortcut. Now fixed!
Another important common operation for me is "Slide Show" -> "Animations" -> "Appear". When I used this new trick, the new keyboard shortcut did indeed appear next to the "Appear" menu item, but it didn't work (just got an error beep). However, I found that after I used to cursor to go through the menus to get to Appear, from then on the keyboard shortcut did work. Hmm. Whatever. A sucky app sucks a little less.
dorktastic
drnic
Posted 5:12 PM 10/1/08
Oh fantastic: Firefox.app; "Open Firebug"; Ctrl+Alt+Cmd+F
drnic
mrbofus
Posted 2:15 PM 11/1/08
Is there anyway to get this to open applications? I've found it interesting that Windows allows you to set keyboard shortcuts to open applications, while OS X does not. But OS X offers the keyboard shortcuts for menu actions while Windows does not.
Or am I wrong about this and totally missing something?
mrbofus
drmaybe
Posted 1:36 PM 11/1/08
I was so excited to finally get a keyboard shortcut to hide Illustrator... until I got the error "You cannot set keyboard shortcuts for Adobe Illustrator CS3".
Damn you Adobeeee!!!
drmaybe
manducasexta
Posted 3:48 PM 11/1/08
I really wish there was a way to change the action in Firefox-Mac for Cmd-Enter. I'd like to switch the functionality of Cmd-Enter and Alt-Enter so Cmd-Enter opens the URL in the address bar in a new Tab. I use that much more than the default Cmd-Enter function of "add www. and .com to what's in the address bar". Any insights out there? Using Keyconfig looks like a monster headache (see 2/3 down this page), plus it's not updated for FF3.0 yet.
manducasexta
Segulus
Posted 3:32 PM 11/1/08
I've know about this for a while, and yes it is Great! Except that the one thing I most want to assign a hot-key to does not seem to work with this method.
In Leopard (10.5.x) Safari has a menu item:
Bookmarks>Add Bookmark For These # Tabs...
# is replaced with whatever number of tabs you have in the window.
Since that number (#) can always be different, it is not possible to "enter the exact name of the menu bar item you want to execute." Thus I have been unable to make this work with this menu item.
If any of you can figure out how to make this work I will greatly appreciate it.
Thanks.
Segulus