Custom Keyboard Shortcuts

It’s no secret that I am a big fan of keyboard shortcuts. If I can keep my hands on the keyboard, and not on a trackpad or mouse, to issue commands, I’m saving myself time and being more productive. Most of the time I navigate the Finder and many dialog boxes without the mouse at all; it’s just too 1980s to navigate with a mouse when you don’t need to! (I’m expecting reactions to this statement; my email is matt@smalldog.com.)

I was pretty sure I already wrote about the ability to create custom keyboard shortcuts, but my search came up empty. So, without further ado, here’s is how to do it.

Start by going to System Preferences from the Apple menu, and select the Keyboard preference pane. Under the keyboard shortcuts tab, click “Application Shortcuts” at the bottom of the list, at left.

Click on the plus (+) button to create a new shortcut, then choose the Application you’d like a new shortcut for from the Application drop-down menu, and select the menu item to receive the shortcut. Type the name of the command into the Menu Title field, then choose your preferred keyboard shortcut.

You will notice that many menu bar items have an ellipsis (…) appended to them. These menu items always require confirmation in a dialog box after they’re selected. If you type the name of a command into the Menu Title field that normally has this ellipsis, you can prevent the dialog box confirmation by simply not entering the ellipsis in the Menu Title field. By extension, you can bypass that requirement by selecting a menu bar item while holding down the option key. I use this every day when I log out of my computer, or empty the trash. To log out without warning, press command-option-shift-q; and to empty the trash without warning, press command-option-shift-delete.