How to open an app with a keyboard shortcut on Mac
There is one keyboard habit that pays for itself faster than any other: never hunting for an app again. You want ⌃⌥S to put Slack in front of you, full stop. But if you go looking for where to set that up, you'll find System Settings doesn't offer it — the "Keyboard Shortcuts" pane is for menu commands, not for launching. Here's how to open an app with a keyboard shortcut on Mac anyway, using what's already installed, plus the third-party options that do it better — and the case for skipping the whole thing.
Why System Settings can't do it
Open System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → App Shortcuts and you can bind any key combination you like — to a menu item inside an app that's already running. It's how you give Preview's "Adjust Size…" a shortcut, or rename Save As. What it can't do is bring an app to the front, because launching an app isn't a menu command anywhere.
macOS Tahoe made this gap more noticeable by removing Launchpad. The full-screen app grid is gone, replaced by an Apps view inside Spotlight; the old F4 key now opens that view instead. It's a perfectly good list, but it's still a search-then-pick interaction, not a single keystroke that lands you in the app you wanted.
The native way: Shortcuts + a keyboard shortcut
The supported answer lives in the Shortcuts app, and it takes about forty seconds per app:
- Open Shortcuts and press ⌘N for a new shortcut.
- Search the action list for Open App and drag it in.
- Click the placeholder and pick your app.
- Open the shortcut's details pane (the ⓘ / sliders icon on the right) and click Add Keyboard Shortcut.
- Press the combination you want, then name the shortcut and close it.
The Open App action activates the app if it's already running rather than starting a second copy, which is exactly the behaviour you want. Two things worth knowing before you build ten of these:
- There's no toggle. Pressing the same shortcut again won't hide the app the way some Windows taskbar behaviour does. macOS has no native show/hide toggle; you'd need a scripting tool for that.
- First-run lag. The first trigger after a reboot can take a beat while Shortcuts wakes up. It settles after that.
The older Automator route — a Quick Action containing "Launch Application", then assigning it a shortcut under Services — still works and is what most search results will show you, since they predate Shortcuts on the Mac. It's more steps for the same result, so only reach for it if Shortcuts is misbehaving.
Pick modifier combinations that won't collide
Whatever tool you use, the combination matters more than people expect. Single-modifier shortcuts (⌘ + letter) are almost all claimed by apps, and stealing one breaks that app quietly. Safe patterns:
- ⌃⌥ + letter — rarely used by apps, easy to reach.
- ⌃⌥⌘ + letter — the "nothing else will ever want this" option, awkward on a laptop unless you remap Caps Lock.
- Function keys — free if you set "Use F1, F2, etc. as standard function keys" in Keyboard settings.
Use the app's first letter where you can. A hotkey you have to remember is a hotkey you'll stop using.
The launcher and utility options
If you want more than three or four of these, a dedicated tool is less fiddly than a folder full of one-action shortcuts.
| Tool | How it launches apps | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Shortcuts (built in) | One shortcut per app, each with its own hotkey | Free |
| Raycast | Assign a hotkey or alias to any app from the root search | Free |
| Alfred | App hotkeys via Workflows | Powerpack (paid) |
| rcmd | Right ⌘ + the app's first letter | Free tier + paid Pro |
| Karabiner-Elements | Map any key to an open -a command | Free, open source |
| Keyboard Maestro / BetterTouchTool | Full launch, focus, and show/hide toggles | Paid |
Raycast is the easiest upgrade: hotkeys and aliases are assignable straight from its root search, on the free tier, so one tool covers both "press a key for Slack" and "type three letters for everything else." rcmd is the cleverest idea in the list — hold the right Command key, press an app's first letter, and you're there, so there is nothing to memorise app by app. Karabiner suits people who already run it for key remapping and would rather not add another agent. If you want a real show/hide toggle, that's Keyboard Maestro or BetterTouchTool territory.
Launching is not the same as switching
Here's the part the tutorials skip. Once your Mac has been awake for an hour, almost nothing you press a hotkey for is actually closed. Slack is open. Chrome is open. What you're really doing is switching — and an app-level hotkey has a blind spot the moment an app has more than one window.
Press your Chrome hotkey and you get Chrome's most recent window, which may not be the one you were thinking of. You're now looking at the wrong tabs, reaching for ⌘` to cycle blindly through the rest (Command-backtick). Every app-level tool in the table above shares this limit, as does ⌘⇥ itself — see how to switch between windows of the same app for the long version.
So the honest advice is: bind hotkeys for the three or four apps you always want in a known state, and use a window switcher for everything else.
That's what Let's Switch is for. Hold ⌥⇥ and you get every open window across every app and monitor, most recent first, each with a live preview — so you pick the window, not the app. ⌥` cycles the windows of the app you're already in. Both are free, permanently. Its Pro search palette (⌥Space) fuzzy-finds any open window by name, and pressing the same keys again flips it to launching any installed app — which is the "one hotkey for everything" version of what this whole article is about, without a shortcut per app. It's $9.99, paid once, no account, up to 20 devices per key.
Pair that with a tiler like Let's Tile for placing windows and the mouse stops being part of the loop at all.
Frequently asked questions
Can I assign a keyboard shortcut to open an app in System Settings? Not directly. App Shortcuts binds keys to menu items in a running app. To launch or focus an app, make a Shortcut with the Open App action and give that a keyboard shortcut.
Does the shortcut open a second copy if the app is already running? No — the Open App action brings the running app to the front instead of starting a new instance.
How do I hide the app with the same shortcut? macOS doesn't support that natively. Keyboard Maestro and BetterTouchTool offer show/hide toggles; otherwise ⌘H hides the front app.
What replaced Launchpad in macOS Tahoe? The Apps view inside Spotlight. F4 still opens it, but it's a searchable list rather than the old full-screen grid, and you can't arrange it into folders.
How many app hotkeys should I set up? Three to five. Past that you start forgetting them, and a launcher or a window switcher covers the rest with one key and a few letters.