Create Keyboard Shortcuts for Menu Items

Learn how to create keyboard shortcuts for menu items that do not have any on the Mac.

Did you know you could create your own keyboard shortcuts for menu items that do not have one on the Mac? You do this through the Keyboard Preference Pane in the Mac’s System Preferences. See how to create your own keyboard shortcuts for menu items in this video for the Mac.

Video TranscriptIn this video, we’re going to look at how we can create our own keyboard shortcuts for specific menu items on the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac. Now, if you’re not familiar with keyboard shortcut. When you’re in an application, as an example, I am in the Finder here, when I’m in an application. What I’m able to do is use a keyboard shortcut for a majority of the menu items.

So let’s say I wanted to open up a new Finder window. Well, one way of doing this is by going up to file, and then we go over to new Finder window. But another way is by using a keyboard shortcut, I can use command. Now, in most cases, you’re familiar with a lot of these keyboard shortcuts. I want to open up a new tab.

I would use command T. I want to find something I would use command F. But let’s say you found something on the menu bar that does not have a keyboard shortcut as an example, under edit. Well, we’re able to do is show our clipboard. This will open up a new window and we can see what is in our clipboard.

Basically what the last thing was that we copied when I select this, you’re going to see, I have my clipboard here. Well, if we look back at our menu bar, there is not a keyboard shortcut for this. So I always have to go up to the menu bar to see what is in my clipboard. What I would like to do is use a keyboard short.

Well, we can add a keyboard shortcut to applications to do that. We need to open up our System Preferences. So I go up under the apple menu and then we go over to our System Preferences. The System Preferences, pain that we’re looking for here is keyboard. Now I am using Mac S Monterrey, but you can do this with older Macko us versions too.

You just need to find the keyboard system preference. I select. And then what we do is we go over to shortcuts under shortcuts. You’re going to see all the different shortcuts for various services or various features. What we’re going to do is create our own. At shortcut. So I select app shortcut. And when I do, you’re going to see, we have plus and minus, this is where I can go and create my own app shortcut.

Now, this is pretty simple to do. All you need to do is just type in the exact name of the menu item. So I want to create a keyboard shortcut for show club. So now I can see that I have to type in show space clipboard. It has to be the exact name. If there was a dot, dot dot behind this, I would have to type in the.dot.it has to be the exact name that is in the menu bar.

So now I just go back over to my keyboard System Preferences. I click on the plus and then we select the application. This is going to be for the Finder. So I just go down to the. This will only work when I’m in the Finder. If I am in another app, it will not work. So I select Finder here and now I type in the name.

So I type in here show clipboard, and then our last step is to type in the keyboard shortcut. So now I just click in here and then I type in the keyboard shortcut that I want to use. Now you’ll want to make sure that this keyboard shortcut is not being used anywhere else. In other words, I couldn’t use command C command C as the universal keyboard.

Short fuck for copy. So I wouldn’t want to use command C the Mac might get confused. What do you want to do? Show the clipboard or copy an item. If I were to use command V as in Victor, that is for. Well, when I type in command V is it going to show me the clipboard or is it going to paste? So you want to make sure that you use a keyboard shortcut that isn’t being used anywhere else.

I have found a good solution to this as using the control key, most shortcuts keyboard shortcuts use the command key. So you want to stay away from the command key, but the control key is pretty loose. So now I just use the control key and I’m going to go. C for clipboard. So I hold down the control key and the C key.

We can see we have it here. And now all I have to do is just click on, add. We can see, we have show clipboard, and then we have control. See if I want to change this, I can change it. If I typed in the name wrong, I can double click in here and type in the name. If I want to change the key command, maybe it is used for something else.

I can click on this and type in a new key. So I know that control C is not being used anywhere else. Let’s see how this works. So now I want to open up my clipboard. I want to show my clipboard. Well, instead of going up to the menu and showing the clipboard under added, all I have to do now is use the keyboard command control C, and we can see my clipboard here.

Again, this is application specific. So if I was in another app, it wouldn’t work. This only works when I’m in. And you can do this across multiple apps. I created my own keyboard shortcut for ScreenFlow. There’s a menu item for ScreenFlow to upload your video to Vimeo. This is where all of my videos are hosted on Vimeo, but there’s not a keyboard shortcut for it.

So I needed to create my own keyboard shortcut. So let’s go and close this and take a look at that. I go up under my apple menu again, and then we go over to our System Preferences from here I go over to. And then we go over to shortcuts and then we go over to app shortcuts. You’re going to see, I have ScreenFlow and it’s vimeo.dot dot.

That’s the name of it in the menu bar, vimeo.dot dot. And then my keyboard shortcut is control M I couldn’t use control V because that was used for something else. So I just use control. So that’s how we can create our own keyboard shortcuts on the Mac. These keyboard shortcuts are application specific.

They will only work in the application that you created in. You can create a keyboard shortcut for pretty much anything that is in a menu bar to create a keyboard shortcut. You just go over to your System Preferences. You go over to keyboard, you go to shortcuts and then app shortcuts. Click on the plus select the application that you want your keyboard shortcut to be in type in the exact name of the menu item, and then type in your keyboard shortcut.

Next time you’re in that application, instead of going up to the menu bar and selecting that menu item, you can just use your new keyboard shortcut. So that’s how you can create keyboard shortcuts on the Mac.