How to Create Custom Keyboard Shortcuts on Mac

Macs come with some truly incredible trackpad motions, and a lot of amazing Mac keyboard shortcuts that are bound to increase your productivity on the machines. There are basically two kinds of keyboard shortcuts: global, and app specific. The global shortcuts work everywhere inside macOS, while the app specific shortcuts only work inside the apps that support them. If you utilize an application (say, Google Chrome) a lot, and you want to create custom shortcuts for it, you’re in luck! In this article, I will walk you through the process of creating custom Mac keyboard shortcuts for apps. These can be applications included by Apple, or even outsider applications that you have on your Mac.

Figuring Out the Action You Want:

Shortcuts are basically a quick way to make an application or play out some activity. For instance, in Chrome, pressing Cmd + D acts as a shortcut to add the current tab to bookmarks. Cmd + Shift + D adds all the open tabs to bookmarks, and so on. While there are alternate ways for a considerable measure of the activities that Chrome can perform, what if you wanted a Mac keyboard shortcut for an action that doesn’t have a defined shortcut?

Launch the application that you need to make the alternate way for. I’m using Google Chrome. We initially need to recognize the correct name for the activity that we require an alternate way for. You can do this by going to “Help” in the menu bar, and looking for the alternative that you need.  In my case, I’ll search for “Open all Bookmarks “.

Create the Custom Keyboard Shortcut:

1. Next, open System Preferences, and go to Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> App Shortcuts.

2. Click on the Plus icon, and select “Google Chrome” in the “Application” drop down menu.

3. Type the exact name of the option you want to create a shortcut for. In my case, I’ll type “Open all Bookmarks “.

4. In the Keyboard Shortcut text box, press the keys that you want to use for the shortcut, but make sure you don’t use any of the system shortcuts, as they may cause a conflict. I’m using Cmd + Opt + Shift + A, and Click on add.

Presently, you can go to Google Chrome, and try out your brand-new shortcut, and you will see that all the bookmarked tabs open up. You can make custom alternate ways for any of the activities accessible in the menus for an application, so play around with them a bit.

Note: You can even go to Bookmarks in the Chrome menu bar, and you will see your shortcut listed next to the menu entry for “Open All Bookmarks”.

Common Issues and Troubleshooting:

If your shortcut does not work, you should check out the following things, to make sure that everything is fine.

1. The first thing you can try, isrestarting the app you created the shortcut for. If the shortcut still doesn’t work, move on to the next step.
2. Check the nameof the option, and make sure you have spelled it exactly the same as it is written in the app. If there are any mistakes, you can simply delete the shortcut that you created, and create a new shortcut.
3. If you have spelled everything right, and the shortcut is still not working, chances are you picked out a keyboard shortcut that is already in use by another app, or by macOS itself. In this case, you will need to remove the shortcut that you created, and create a new one, making sure that you use a key combination that is not in use by another app.