Keyboard shortcuts

Switchboard has seven menus: Switchboard, File, Edit, View, Macro, Window and Help. The same menus serve every window (the editor, Activity, Extensions and Help): an item that cannot act on the window in front is dimmed, never hidden. Settings is ⌘,. This page lists the shortcuts by menu, then explains the key spec syntax that hotkey triggers and the Press keys step share.

File #

Edit #

View #

Macro #

The clipboard panel #

⌃⌥⌘V opens the clipboard panel from any app, and again closes it. Type to search; add @app (such as @safari) to show only what was copied in that app.

To use another key, record it in Settings › Clipboard History, or choose None to turn the hotkey off. The menu bar's Clipboard History item opens the panel either way.

Paste as #

⌃⌥V opens a panel over the clipboard that lists what it can become (plain text, Markdown, JSON, a file, AI rewrites) with a preview of each. ⏎ pastes, ⌘⏎ copies, ⌘1 to ⌘9 pick a row, ⎋ closes. Record another key in Settings › Paste As. See Paste as.

Window and Help #

Activity window #

In lists, pickers and sheets #

The palette opens from any app with ⌥Space by default (⇧⌥Space on a Mac where Raycast, Alfred or ChatGPT already holds ⌥Space when Switchboard is first set up). Type to search, ↑ ↓ to move, ⏎ to run, ⌥⏎ for a dry run, ⌘⏎ to edit, ⇧⌘D to debug, ⌘1 to ⌘9 to pick a row, ⎋ to close. On a menu item row (type part of a menu command of the app you are in), ⏎ chooses the item and ⌘⏎ makes a macro for it and opens the hotkey recorder. The hotkey is chosen in General settings. The choices are ⌥Space, ⇧⌥Space and ⇧⌘Space.

Tap to search, hold to act #

The palette key does two things. Tap ⌥Space and the palette opens as usual (when you let go, so a tap feels no different). Hold it for about a third of a second with something selected, a file in Finder, a link in the browser or a Mail message in front, and the palette opens as Actions for This over that thing instead, with the actions that fit it on top. ⌫ on the empty field drops the thing and turns the panel into the plain palette, so a hold you didn't mean costs one key. Hold with nothing to act on and you get the plain palette, with a one-time line saying how the hold works. Act on what you're looking at has the rest.

Settings › Palette › Hold the hotkey to act on the selection turns it off (the palette then opens the moment you press the key). Hold time in Settings › Advanced changes the 350 ms. ⌃⌥Space stays as the Actions for This key if you would rather tap one key to search and another to act.

System commands in the palette #

Type a command's name in the palette and press ⏎. Each runs as a one-step run, so it shows in Activity as “System ▸ Lock Screen”. Turn the rows off in Settings › Palette › System commands.

Type quit, kill or force quit to list the apps that have a window or a Dock icon, biggest memory first: “Quit Xcode · 3.1 GB · running 2 h”. Add part of a name to narrow the list (quit saf). ⏎ asks the app to quit, ⌥⏎ force quits it (after kill, ⏎ force quits and ⌥⏎ asks politely). Memory is the figure Activity Monitor shows as Memory. Background processes aren't listed; Activity Monitor is the place for those.

Apps open from the palette too: type two or more letters of an app's name (saf, or the first letters of its words, vsc) and press ⏎ to open it or bring it to the front. On a running app, ⌥⏎ asks it for a new window. Apps you open often move up. Installed apps under Palette in General settings turns the rows off.

Click by letters is the Click by letters macro in the Examples group, on ⌘⇧Space. Type a label to click, a word to search, / to search a word that begins with a label letter, Space to scroll, ⇧ ⌥ ⌘ ⌃ on the last letter for right-click, double-click, hover and focus, ⎋ to close. Click by letters has the details.

The palette learns. Choose a row for something you typed ("sf" and Safari) and that row comes first the next time you type it, and for longer versions of it ("sfa"), whatever kind of row it is: a macro, an app, a menu item, a snippet. It sits at the top under "For ‘sf’" so you can see why. Choose something else and the palette follows you. ⌘⌫ on that row forgets it. Dry runs and the empty query teach it nothing. Turn it off, or forget everything, in Settings › Palette (Learn from my picks).

Key spec syntax #

A key spec is a short piece of text that names a key press. The Press keys step and the Hotkey trigger both read it.

Rules:

1. Join parts with +. The last part is the key. Everything before it is a modifier.

2. Names are not case sensitive. Cmd+Shift+A and cmd+shift+a are the same.

3. Modifier symbols can be written together and stuck to the key: ⌃⌥⌘K.

4. To press the plus key, write cmd++.

5. A spec of modifiers with no key is an error, as is a key in the middle.

Modifiers #

Keys #

Characters. Letters, digits and punctuation are written as the character. Switchboard presses the key that types that character on your current layout, so cmd+z is the key labelled Z even on Dvorak. A shifted symbol such as ? presses its key with Shift added.

Named keys. These never move with the layout.

Spaces, hyphens and underscores inside a name are ignored, so page up and page_up also work.

Media keys. volumeup, volumedown, mute, brightnessup, brightnessdown, playpause, nexttrack and previoustrack. Shorter names play, next, previous, prev and togglemute work too.

Media keys can be pressed by a Press keys step but cannot start a hotkey trigger.

In Press keys #

The Press keys step takes the spec in keys.

• Press one combination per step. The step's code also accepts a list in keys, but the macro schema allows only text, so use one step per combination.

• modifiers adds modifiers to every key in keys. Imported macros use this form with a single key.

• repeat presses the key several times, and holdMs holds each press down for that long.

This example sends ⌘A and ⌘C to whatever app is in front when it runs for real. A dry run only lists the keys.

In hotkey triggers #

A Hotkey has keys and modifiers.

• keys is a key spec. It may include modifiers itself, such as cmd+shift+4, or just the key, such as 4.

• modifiers is a list from cmd, ctrl, opt, shift, fn and hyper. These are added to any modifiers in keys.

• Leave keys empty to make a modifier-only hotkey. It starts when you release the modifiers, if you pressed no other key meanwhile.

• repeat lets a held key start the macro again and again. By default a held key starts it once.

The hotkey must match the modifiers exactly. A trigger for ⌘K does not start when you press ⇧⌘K.

Arrow keys, function keys and the navigation keys (Home, End, Page up, Page down, Help and Forward delete) carry the Fn flag in macOS whether or not you hold Fn. Switchboard ignores that flag unless your trigger asks for fn, so ctrl+opt+left works as written.

Calculations in the palette #

Type a calculation into the palette and its answer is the first row. ⏎ copies the answer and ⌥⏎ types it into the front app. Everything runs on the Mac with no network. A query that is not clearly a calculation (a bare number, a word, a macro name) shows no calculator row.

The same conversions are available in macros as the convert and timeIn functions.

Next steps #

• Triggers

• Your first macro

• Getting started