Raycast - best launcher on Mac
Raycast is one of my favorite tools on Mac. It's just a launcher but it's super fast, customizable and has some extra features I find useful. It also has tons of extensions. If you've heard of Alfred, this is similar.
My most used features
Apart from launching apps
Hotkeys
You can set up a hotkey for any application or Raycast command. I use this to switch between application windows, for example ⌥ + F switches to Firefox, ⌥ + T switches to Telegram, ⌥ + O switches to Obsidian etc. Super useful!
Open system settings directly
You can open specific system settings directly by just searching it. For example if you type 'keyboard' you will find a shortcut for the Keyboard section of the system settings.
Search for files
If you type a directory or file name and then hit the 'File Search', Raycast will search for that file/directory across your system. From there you have multiple options, like open, show in finder, copy file etc.
Calculator
Raycast's built-in calculator doesn't only support basic math calculations, but conversions as well. This is very handy to be able to calculator anything on the fly without opening your browser. Some examples:
- 100kg in pounds
- 100 dollars in euros
- today in 3 weeks
- days until september 25th
- time in japan
Quicklinks
Basically a custom command to open x file with y program. For example, I have created a dotfiles command to open my dotfiles repo using vscode.
Floating Notes
Clipboard History
Raycast saves your clipboard history and you can easily access it. It even shows you previews if your copied item is an image or a webpage url! You can also search from your history.
Open Obsidian Vault
I have 2 seperate Obsidian vaults: one for my personal stuff and one for work. With Obsidian extension I can open a specific vault straight from Raycast.
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