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How to Open an App with a Keyboard Shortcut on Mac
With Supercharge
- Open the settings of Supercharge, and click “Shortcuts”.
- Scroll to “Launch app”, near the bottom, and click the add button.
- Choose the app, like Safari.
- Click the field next to the app, and press the keyboard shortcut that you want, like ControlOptionS.
Press the shortcut from anywhere to open the app, or to bring it to the front when it is already open. Press it again to hide the app and go back to the app that you used before, so one shortcut shows and hides the app.
To use shortcuts with only one extra key, like Caps LockS, make Caps Lock a Hyper key.
Get Supercharge
Elevate your Mac experience
$20, one-time purchase, plus tax where applicable
- Platform
- macOS
- Requires
- macOS 26.4 or later
- Released
- September 2024
- Privacy
- No personal data collected
- Updated
- September 2026
- Version
- 1.30.1
- Size
- 16 MB
- Gumroad rating
- 5.0/5 (284 ratings)
Without an app
The Shortcuts app can run a shortcut from a keyboard shortcut:
- Open the Shortcuts app, and click the add button to make a new shortcut.
- Add the “Open App” action, and choose the app in the action.
- Click the details button in the sidebar, click “Add Keyboard Shortcut”, and press the keys.
Apple’s instructions. This works, but you must make one shortcut for each app, and it only opens the app: a second press does not hide it. Spotlight is also fast without any setup: press CommandSpace, type the first letters of the app, and press Return.