Switching apps is something I do hundreds of times a day on both MacOS and Windows. I found a way to make this faster, which has made my workflow a lot more efficient.
Is switching apps really difficult?
Well, just a bit. Not much, but small frustrations easily add up over time. Switching with a keyboard always required too much effort for me. I often try one of these, but each one requires some thinking (or typing):
-
win-4
to launch the 4th taskbar app (Windows) -
ctrl-alt-4
using uBar to emulate Windows behaviour (MacOS) -
alt-tab-tab-tab
to switch to a window (Windows and MacOS) -
cmd-space firefox
to use Spotlight (MacOS)
My solution: fixed key bindings
I settled a way that’s easier for me: shortcuts that always do one—and only one—thing. For example, ctrl-win-w
will always focus my web browser, where alt-tab
requires some thinking to figure out how many Tabs to press.
The result: I save a second of thinking for every app switch I do. For something I do hundreds of times a day, it all adds up! 🎉
MacOS via Raycast
There are many ways this can be achieved in MacOS. The simplest one I think is with Raycast.
MacOS via Hammerspoon
For my MacBook, I used Hammerspoon, a hotkey automation suite for MacOS. Writing a Lua script to launch apps with hotkeys isn’t too difficult:
Windows via AutoHotkey
For my Windows laptop, I used a powerful automation scripting language called AutoHotkey. Here’s an example that launches apps based on start menu items (w
and o
), URL (c
) and file path (v
).
My shortcuts
I set up shortcuts for the apps I use 90% of the time. For anything not here, I would use Spotlight or Windows Search.
Thanks for reading!
Thanks for checking out my post! I'm a web developer who loves open source and supercharging productivity. If you liked this post, consider following me on Dev.to (@rstacruz) or Twitter (@rstacruz)!
- Autohotkey - automation for Windows
- Raycast - app launcher for MacOS
- Hammerspoon - automation for MacOS
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