[kozhevnikov]

The main shortcut to remember is ⌘⇧? (or ⌘⇧/ on some layouts) which focuses Search under Help. It searches through all menu items and pressing down arrow will highlight it and show its shortcut. Pressing enter will execute it, but I prefer to cancel and use the direct shortcut to build up muscle memory.

[tosh]

wow, i was not aware of this! this also works to trigger menu items that don't have assigned keyboard shortcuts. I use Macs since Mac OS 9 and somehow I never discovered this.

on Big Sur this also hovers an arrow next to the menu item, this is what it looks like:

https://twitter.com/__tosh/status/1291712410437459968

[jbc1]

Arrow exists on Catalina as well.

[JadeNB]

I'm on Mojave, where it also exists. I'm pretty sure that I remember it being around since at least the days of Tiger (10.4), and that the only reason that I can't vouch for it earlier is that Tiger is when I entered the OS X ecosystem.

[kps]

Definitely present in Snow Leopard (the last good version).

[Hackbraten]

Note for users with a German keyboard layout: Given that the ? character is only reachable by pressing Shift, the ⇧? combination won’t work for us.

Which is why for German keyboards, Apple made ⇧⌘/ the Search shortcut.

Which also makes no sense. Because surprise, we can’t use / either without pressing Shift at the same time.

Oh, the burden of an ÄÖÜ-bearing language.

[JadeNB]

> Note for users with a German keyboard layout: Given that the ? character is only reachable by pressing Shift, the ⇧? combination won’t work for us.

Not arguing, but I think I don't understand the point. Also on a QWERTY-keyboard, ? requires ⇧. In fact, ⌘⇧/ and ⌘⇧? not only have the same effect, but are literally just different ways of describing exactly the same keypress. If you need ⇧ to access a key, but ⇧ is already included in the combination, then what's the problem?

[Hackbraten]

My point was that when ⌘(key) is already assigned to something, Apple sometimes still introduces a ⌘⇧(key) shortcut for another thing, creating a conflict because it’s the same keypress. Sometimes they don’t notice until years later.

Example: Apple chose ⌘⇧/ to focus the help search box but didn’t consider that ⌘/ already toggles line comments in many editors and IDEs.

Some app teams at Apple even double-assign ⌘(key), creating a conflict with a system-wide (localized) shortcut.

Example: On German macOS, ⌘< means Next window but a few years ago, Xcode introduced the same ⌘< shortcut for stuff like Edit Scheme, a menu command the average developer probably uses at most a few dozen times a year. Next window though is super important.

Fortunately, it’s all customizable on the user side so I’m not too angry at Apple. I just have a little weltschmerz about my language having so many umlauts, forcing keyboard designers to demote so many characters to ⇧.

[FreezerburnV]

Oh my gosh thank you for pointing this out. I love that search bar and use it to find/activate things in programs pretty frequently that might not have a keybind or ability to create a keybind. The fact that I can now access that via a keybind that allows me to find it is phenomenal and I'm somewhat embarrassed to have been using a Mac for so many years loving keyboard shortcuts and not know about this one. I should honestly just read the entire linked article and make some notes about important ones.

[syvl]

You can also create a keyboard shortcut for any menu item with Keysmith [0].

(Not just menu items, but any series of actions involving mouse clicks and keystrokes.)

[0] https://keysmith.app

Disclaimer: I made this, haven't officially launched but I thought you might find it useful. If you do check it out, I'd love to hear your feedback (especially things that aren't clear, or objections to trying it based on the website) and would be happy to gift you a license if you'd like.

[xattt]

The benefit is that it’s basically a command line for any app.

[spideymans]

Brilliant. Refinements like this is why I love the Mac. All functions in all apps are condensed into the menu bar, and you can navigate the bar with a few keystrokes.

[tgb]

So is this like what Ubuntu's Unity did years ago, making all an app's menus searchable? Seemed like the smartest new feature at the time, though I never really got a chance to use it. And I don't have a mac to test this on and can't quite picture what it does from the description. Certainly I'll take anything that avoids the "is it under View or Windows or Edit???" hunt.

[the_lucifer]

You type ⌘+⇧+/ (⌘+?) and the help menu opens with the search box highlighted by default. Anything you type in here will search through the menus. using arrow keys or ctrl+n/p will move through the suggests and each menu suggestion is pointed out with an animated hovering pointer. Just press enter to activate the highlighted action.

https://i.imgur.com/vMAiysG.png

[Kovah]

I just tried this in Firefox and instead of focusing search in the menu bar, it took me to the Firefox help page on mozilla.org.

[callahad]

Hm, I can't reproduce that here. What version of macOS and Firefox are you running? Does the shortcut work properly in other programs?

[Kovah]

⌘⇧/ worked for me, like mentioned in the other comments. German keyboard. :)

[jbc1]

That's fantastic. Thanks!