I can't use a Mac without this app.

Raycast seems simple, but once you see what it can do there is no going back. It has everything I wanted after trying that linux laptop a few months ago.
Thank you fal.ai for sponsoring! Check them out at soydev.link/fal
Check out my Twitch, Twitter, Discord more at t3.gg
S/O Ph4se0n3 for the awesome edit 🙏

[@theunstoppablebrigade4277]

The number one feature of Raycast that Theo didnt mention is the clipboard manager. It has literally revolutionized my workflow

[@t3dotgg]

I should use this more

[@MayankArora9]

@@t3dotgg Maybe use Maccy first. Raycast clipboard manager is feature rich but maccy just feels faster, assuming from the video that you too are going for 1 or 2 keystrokes per action.

[@MayankArora9]

Maybe give a `^ + 6` to Maccy to do that.

[@Gismya]

What's the additional value with Maccy?

[@a2downing]

@@t3dotgg I mapped the clipboard manager to OPT + V, and now I use it multiple times an hour

[@triducal]

Sometimes I forget my macbook didn't come with raycast. Its become such an important and substantial part of my workflow and daily use.

[@josh430316]

Trying to use someone else’s Mac is hard work now I’ve gotten used to Raycast.

[@dylanbalagtas6444]

i tried using someone else's macbook with no raycast, i was like yow how do you open/switch apps

[@BatuhanIcoz]

something i use all the time is conversions: - currencies: you can do stuff like "((60k/12) usd + 1200eur + 5000 try) cad" - time: you write 10am est, you get it in your tz. you can do stupid and useful things like "(10am est in gmt+5) + 1h" - measurements: inches to cm and vice versa it's sooo good

[@ste-fa-no]

You're my kind of people, thanks for the tip 🤑 I need to do that kind of conversions all the time!

[@meenstreek]

I love using it to convert units, like "15" to cm". Or converting currency like "1usd to aud". Or converting a datetime into another timezone like, "Jan 9, 2025 10:00am pst to Sydney". It's pretty insane the things you can convert to/from.

[@nielsdeschaap]

If you want to convert more web related stuff: rem, px, pt, hex, hex (with opacity), rgb, rgba, hsl and hsla and the shows closest Tailwind CSS color you can use Web Convert plugin for raycast

[@EirikRye]

The built in Spotlight bar in macOS can do most of this.

[@denysdorokhov6355]

Interesting. I'm just typing it into Google, and it works 90% of the time 😅

[@PaulPlay]

Spotlight can also do conversions like this + calculations

[@kevkwa]

PSA: It can tell how many days since a certain date or till a certain date. Or hours or minutes for that matter. Play around with it and you'll be surprised how useful it can be.

[@AloisMahdal]

NOT showing shortcuts in the menu is a design crime trend that a lot of apps somehow got away around 2010's, even though it was ubiqituous before that.

[@nicolaska1761]

I've been using the hotkeys of raycast for 4/5 months now, and it has changed the way i work, you can even create a specific window layout and map it to a hotkey for example, so option+2 opens my editor, and option+ctrl+2 open my editor resized with the ios simulator on the side. I save minutes of work everyday just thank to that feature.

[@OfficialMyrton]

Raycast has a list of preset hotkeys for their window management. Both the Rectangle and Spectacle defaults are there for a super fast migration.

[@itsTarik]

For my Windows folks, they have a survey on their Twitter to be notified when the Windows version is released

[@leonelmira3124]

omg thanks, i use a lot flow.launcher its really powerfull, it have a lot extensibility via plugins too, i wanna compare them in the windows version

[@ademmohammed3939]

PowerToys already has most of it

[@ademmohammed3939]

Some of the features that PowerToys has I found out it does from this video

[@itsTarik]

@ademmohammed3939 Totally agree. But having a choice between the two would be nice

[@ademmohammed3939]

@@itsTarik true that

[@esyriz]

I keep getting surprised by the calculator, it even works for trigonometry, degrees/radians, converting currency etc and also if you use hyperkey you can launch all the apps and extra shortcuts by doing capslock+any letter (you can set keyboard shortcut for EVERYTHING in raycast)

[@somrigostsaas]

The hyperkey is KILLER together with Raycast!

[@Action2me]

That’s what I do too! And Raycast has built in Hyperkey support in settings, so your shortcuts get displayed nicely as a hyperkey instead of the full shortcut.

[@Athena-2003]

svgl is something i wanted for such a long time and didnt know it existed. YOU ARE A GODSEND

[@shaheershakir]

For those who are wondering in windows the spotlight equivalent is called Powertoy ( called Power Run) from Microsoft, after installing, can launch with alt + space

[@Woofer21]

Raycast also has been teasing a windows version, & a wait list is available on the site.

[@hundvd_7]

But it is not even close to as good. It's barely as good as base Spotlight

[@dinceraydin40]

Listary is the best one on Windows.

[@Asdfghjkl-ls1or]

Fluent search is significantly better, surprised ppl still even use powertoys

[@TheOnceAndFutureDoug]

A lot of this feels like Alfred to me but it also feels like Alfred has slowed down development and this might be the next tool of choice... Guess I need to try it out.

[@RolandHaller]

Yeah I hear more and more about ray cast and I feel like Alfred is stagnating. But I’m used to it and can’t find the reason to switch yet.

[@LvcasX1]

Does it have workflows like Alfred?

[@kowalskifrog]

I'm the type of person that gets sucked into the new hot thing and I've been using alfred for a long time. I'm in the stage where I'm bargaining with myself to not switch because the time and effort isn't worth it. And I still think that's the case. I would be interested to know if raycast has features that make it far and above better than alfred.

[@somrigostsaas]

@@RolandHaller and @kowalskifrog I was an avid Alfred user until a found Raycast about a year ago. I'm not going back. Workflows are not a designated part of Raycast, but there are multiple workarounds, and the one that comes to mind is creating a script command (with the assistance of ChatGPT or similar, if you don't know the language).

[@joshuarileymagic]

@@kowalskifrog I switched from Alfred to Raycast over a year ago now, I just started small, by using it as a spotlight and then slowly started using their features, I now have multiple extensions I created for personal use

[@subhashgottumukkala]

i've been using raycast since 2023 and ever since it's become so important to me. especially the clipboard manager and the emoji selector

[@brinkoo7]

I had this app installed at one point but i was totally lost. I will have to try it out again

[@Elia90570]

for people on windows, flow luncher is the closest equivalent to raycast, it has so many plugins, including the calculator one edit: i know raycast for win is coming soon, but flow luncher was there for years, its more stable and it's already have a good plugin ecosystem

[@Moshiur_Rahman]

For me, powertoys run (from Microsoft) is better with some plugins as it already comes with powertoys, and it also looks nicer. And there's also a waitlist for raycast on Windows

[@zaidsharieff-s6s]

Flow Launcher is the goat, its plugin ecosystem just keeps getting better, I wish to contribute to it someday

[@Woofer21]

Raycast on win is also coming soon, they have been teasing it & have a wait list

[@leonelmira3124]

flow.launcher is the better in windows, i wanna compare the result they give in their windows app version, and wath kind of plugins they gonna have

[@LHCB6]

I'm with you man. I have also convinced myself that command tab is good enough, but I absolutely... vehemently not accepted command tilde as good enough. I'm only halfway through your video, but if this freaking solves that problem, let's go!

[@jameshobbs]

CMD ~ blows (often)

[@LHCB6]

The irony is that on MacOS, I miss my window management tools from Linux. I would totally set MacOS up with my most used workflow keybinds *if I could.*

[@andrijaskontra4293]

Did you try aerospace

[@prospekt_1]

Aerospace, Yabai and Amethyst are all options

[@DenCato]

@@prospekt_1 But they each come with their own disadvantages. I would love Aerospace to fix some issues, but some are linked to how Mac works (putting windows out of screen space for instance) ... On linux i3 just works!

[@prospekt_1]

@ True, I’m not unaware of the compromises. I’ve been using Amethyst for a while which has some quirks, but I definitely prefer it over Yabai. Recently, I’ve been considering a switch to Aerospace, because it improves the speed of switching between workspaces by emulating them, which as you mention causes the necessity of the window placement compromise. All in all, however, because of my usecase for work and personal stuff, macOS just works better than a Linux distro overall, despite the compromises

[@vSealos]

Yabai + skhd ❤

[@robwhitaker8534]

Using spotlight and typing the first 2 letters of an app is good enough for me.

[@ICTBase]

I like Raycast extension. As I am running many projects, I always set an extension to open a project in specific IDE. It's so nice.

[@theherk]

If you use zoxide, you might like the extension Zoxide Git Projects.

[@YaronLavi]

This is a real game changer for me! Thank you so much for sharing and making an awesome video about it! I've now uninstalled: iterm2 (for ghostty), rectangle(window management is actually decent) and maccy(clipboard history, just set the hotkey as it was for it) Thank you Theo(AKA - Skater boy from California)!

[@JonathanRose24]

What originally sold me on raycast was connecting my calendar to it. Now if I have a meeting with a zoom link about to start, when I open raycast and just hit enter, it opens the zoom. So fast to hop into meetings. I now use a ton of extensions. One cool one will decode a jwt in my clipboard

[@techtipsuk]

Raycast is simply superb. Unbelievable depth once you really get into it. It replaced 3 apps on my machine. Alfred, text expander and a colour picker.

[@enricotartarotti]

Windows has a CTRL+number shortcut to open the Nth app in the taskbar which was so handy but since I switched to Mac I was so angry i couldn't do that anymore. Been using raycast for more than a year now and I only just realized I can re-create the same thing in Raycast!

[@1weiho]

Thanks for sharing the SVGL extension, Theo 😉

[@leonelmira3124]

yes, im glad too

[@zdravkoiliev4814]

The top feature for me is adding shortcuts for apps, for example option + c can launch vscode if it's not running, or it will focus it if it's already running. Together with cmd + ~ to switch between instances made my workflow really simple and really fast.

[@rtpHarry]

I had seen this but thought there was so much customisability that it would be overhead to learn. This video has whet my appetite now, thanks.

[@damn77777]

I hate subscription apps and that's why I use Alfred. In my opinion with the custom workflow management and community Alfred workflows it's definitely a better choice if you hate subscription apps

[@nicolaska1761]

You don't have to subscribe, basically all the interesting things are free

[@ee89199]

it's free....

[@somrigostsaas]

It's free, dude. What are you even talking about?

[@Jason-yr6fy]

The svg feature just blew my mind! Great vid!

[@AustinCameron]

Doesn't Spotlight already have calc built in? With copy/paste icon? I can even move the spotlight results window around...

[@MaximKozachenko]

It does, but it does now have proper history and bad at unit conversions. I love calculating with raycast like 3k usd to eur and it provides correct results

[@theDanielJLewis]

Yes, I was initially thinking that, too. But Spotlight doesn't save the history of your calculations.

[@qainguin4211]

When you try to add and subtract certain numbers it sometimes just gives up.

[@theDanielJLewis]

@@qainguin4211 Which gives up? Spotlight, or Raycast?

[@nielsdeschaap]

Yeah and the plugins are so nice. There is one that, if you input a color, it shows conversions to rgb, hex, hsl and even the nearest tailwind color. It’s called Web Convert

[@rickdg]

I feel more comfortable paying for Alfred

[@gustavo-santos-dev]

I love Raycast, as a Brazilian working for an American company, having calculator, translator, clipboard management, and window management at a shortcut of distance is amazing.

[@noormohammedshikalgar]

I am pumped to use it now, I saw some alfred videos and the style and all was NAHHHH for me but looking at this, WOW.

[@timonjur]

I mostly only use it for the window management and as the app launcher, but there is just so much more that you can do with it, absolutely love it

[@littleluce]

Raycast is so great. I’ve been using it for awhile now too, always good to see other workflows!

[@joshkeegan3009]

i was looking for this video last night. Perfect timing!

[@itisciprian]

let me rock your world with moving windows with raycast - extensions - windows management and you can assign hot keys for what yoou need - i ditched everthing for raycast - as a bonus you can use vim binds . Chapea forr a a nice video and keep on going mate !

[@martingrubinger9455]

This is one of the videos I keep opening new tabs for later bookmarking, thanks! It's worth noting how easy and accessible Raycast makes it for developers to create their own extensions with TypeScript/React. The publishing process is also very smooth. Easily one of my absolute favorite apps on my macs. I hope it is not destroyed by too many invasive AI features...

[@ronniemagatti3342]

Raycast is undoubtedly the best addition to my Mac workflow ever

[@thereal-ngg]

Just the other day I was looking for a solution to bring focus to an app via a shortcut, and couldn't find a good one as everyone was talking about setting up some complex window manager which is waaaaay to overkill for what I needed. Also - I was surprised you didn't mention the clipboard history extension Thank you, Theo! Been watching your videos for a while now, and I always find something new and useful out of them.

[@TheFeriner]

i’ve been using apptivate for that. works perfectly fine. but i might be able to combine a couple apps into one using raycast, including apptivate, so i might give it a try

[@AkshitTripathi]

I just got my first mac and was wanting to set up Raycast, so thank you for making this video

[@InternetEntreprenuer]

Akshit

[@andromaia]

Raycast is genuinely so genius. It takes me a while to try new things on Mac that don’t seem "native". And raycast, it just feels like it belongs on my computer.

[@tbm5k]

by 3:42 i paused and installed raycast, i needed no further convincing

[@0791679]

As a dev on mac , Raycast is essential !!! LOVE IT

[@_ped_]

there he is

[@alirezamohseni5475]

Can't live without Raycast and you literally just scratched the surface!

Love Raycast. Btw Hide menu bar is easily done via "Only Switch" app or in Raycast via extension "Toggle Menu Bar" even with more options.

[@overra_dev]

TIL you can reset the ranking of a search result. If you keep getting the wrong result first, reset the ranking for that result.

[@kyle8575]

Downloaded Raycast as soon as you showed off the calculator functionality. Yeah, that's sweet. Can't recommend Aerospace enough for window management. Was my missing piece to stop flip flopping from MacOS & Linux.

[@Stratopeter87]

I like the raycast calculator for simple calculations, but for anything more complex I use Magic Number, which lets me quickly enter and edit formulas visually. It can also be bound to a hotkey and toggled easily.

[@Windeycastle]

The calculator feature is really good! I'll see if I can have something like that integrated with Rofi, my app launcher on Linux.

[@sidewaysdesign]

Thank you! I'm sold on Raycast. I can't remember which version of OSX it was that broke the utility I was using for app-switching hotkeys, but it was such an incredible convenience.

[@inducingchaos]

The sleep schedule part seems like a universal experience LMAO

[@SkyaTura]

You sold me the app at the calculator's history.

[@HenriHuotari]

Been using Raycast for a few years now. No going back. Awesome tool. The calculator is cool, but I still prefer Numi.

[@Jeanseb23]

I'm surprised Sherlock 3 and Watson weren't mentioned in this. That's where the term "Sherlocked" came from, and what gave today's Spotlight app

[@jeremysollars5922]

For Windows users, we have Power Toys as an equivalent, I cant work without it personally.

[@curiouslycory]

If they can get this working on Windows & Linux it would be such a great way to reduce mental context switching between platforms.

[@sebas11tian]

Use ROFI on Linux for the same effect, less of "smart" but way more flexible and extensible obviously.

[@KulturanCov]

Looks very good. Thanks. Might change my mac experience by a lot

[@SebastianLN]

One of my favorite features of Raycast is that it can convert rem to px which can be very handy

[@dakdevs]

would be cool to get a rundown of your studio setup as it is now!

[@pewnit]

Oh my god, I started using MacOS for work in September and Raycast is the only tool that I started using on day one and still use to this day.

[@bennydreamly]

Raycast is great. I started using it, and spotlight is just no good. SO MUCH BETTER now it's amazing

[@תומרזיו-ב3ב]

First app I install on a fresh Mac. Raycast is 🔥🔥🔥

[@syntheticperson]

Multiple helpful pointers. Thanks!

[@LadyEmilyNyx]

Given that every tool you've introduced me to so far has been life changing, I'm just going to go ahead and try this one on faith.

[@antonioss0]

omg also you can do like "next friday" and it'll show the date for the next friday, or like "4 weeks from now" will show you the date 4 weeks from now, or you can do the combo "friday in 4 weeks" it is so amazingly good.

[@rodrigoea]

Raycast is the best!One thing I personally do is to configure Caps Lock as hyperkey (cmd, option, control) on Karabiner, and then I use like caps lock + b = browser for example

[@inqzz]

you can do calc straight in the input, you can also type 3:00 in paris and it will convert it to your time. same with measurement conversions

[@ThomasVanhelden]

Raycast is definitely an awesome and well-made app. However, I'm (personally) not a huge fan. I'm a big proponent of the Unix philosophy of "make each program do one thing well." I definitely see the downside of my setup, where I can do everything you demo'd here, but I need a handful of applications to achieve. I'm not entirely convinced I'm on the right track, and I might change my mind in the future. I think using a set of apps that do one thing well, gives me more freedom and precision, especially in the long-term. I might be wrong (and I frequently am), but Raycast seems to make the simple things easier, while making the complex things harder.

[@rormah]

Okay I'm convinced on Raycast. I used to use Alfred but this is clearly superior in every way

[@ste-fa-no]

I remember maybe 10 years ago or even more, using Launchy on Windows. This feels like having control (and SPEED) again.

[@techikansh]

The video u mentioned in the start, that introduced me to ur channel

[@fam0uq]

I can't stop praising Raycast; I've been doing so for over two years

[@RC-14]

Raycast seems cool but I already use BTT (Better Touch Tool) and it does everything I need. (BTT is not a spotlight replacement) Hotkeys for specific apps or only when multiple monitors are connected and automatically doing stuff when something happens is all pretty easy with it. (does feel a bit janky sometimes but only when I do some weird config that it probably wasn't meant to do)

[@takeiteasyeh]

*fires up mac, heads to kitty*

[@adamshockley4934]

Floating notes are also really small and convenient

[@dcomella]

They've been teasing raycast for windows! They've already got a waitlist! It is coming.

[@sligovolts]

Woot, thanks for letting us know!

[@mikestaub]

They should just embed this video on their landing page

[@mrousavy]

mac's default spotlight app can also do calculations, maths and currency conversions.

[@somrigostsaas]

Yeah, but Raycast cover WAY more cases. Raycast has smartness in the calculations, whereas Spotlight is more … simple. Try typing "10 pm + 7 hours" or "3k yuan to nok". It's instant in Raycast, and that's super impressive.

[@joaaaane]

Can you please share the bash script for hiding the menu bar? I would really like to have this too!

[@alpipego]

If you have multiple apps called the same (like calendar), you can also give it the alias `calendar` or shorter `cal` and it will be moved to the top of the list. `cal` would then conflict with `calculator` but you get the point. Somehow, this also highlights one of my annoyances. I think it's supposed to learn which apps I use, but I have the feeling it doesn't, i.e., it always puts “Chrome Canary” ahead of “Chrome” no matter how often I open Chrome.

[@enderarchery2153]

He starts talking about the moving thing and the calculator and the window layouts and the shortcuts that can be customized to any app. And I'm like... welcome to kde! 🙈

[@manuelben98]

Raycast has like 3 apps in one, spotlight replacement, clipboard manager and window manager

[@pichrazong6479]

Been using Raycast like forever, surprisingly I had no clue about the calculator.

[@deecewan]

The raycast calculator/fx/etc just...know. You don't need to type "calc" first. It just does the maths.

[@TheBurntHoney]

You can configure raycast to use rectangle bindings. There should be a button to configure it automatically.

[@joe0hill]

I have to admit Theo you do love first class tickets for the hype train…

[@nielsdeschaap]

I love Raycast, even made my own extension called Web Convert. It converts everything web related: rem, px, pt, hex, hex (with opacity), rgb, rgba, hsl and hsla and the shows closest Tailwind CSS color!

[@StonedDevCraft]

Wait till you discover AeroSpace for mac, that plus raycast :chefskiss:

[@mrpiggy105]

I keep wanting to use Raycast on my Mac (can't use Linux on the computer it for work reasons)... I think I'll wait until something open source with this much flexibility comes out (it may not even) because this seems great. Although some of those features are built into Spotlight (with less handy things that go along with them), like the calculator and moving the window with snapping.

[@nathanaeltg]

try scriptkit maybe? open source + u might like it

[@somrigostsaas]

Send them a request. They're currently working on a Windows version, which should be out soon. If enough of us ask them to provide a Linux version, who knows…

[@mrpiggy105]

@@somrigostsaas I didn't mean it like that but a Linux version for my Linux machine would be great! (What I meant is that if it becomes open source, which it probably won't, or if I feel the need to, I'll install it on my Mac. I can't use Linux on my mac for other reasons, not raycast on Linux.)

[@camrolaguardia]

raycast gave me back the granularity of control over the operating system that seems to have gotten lost when i decided to ditch windows/linux for a macoOS as my daily driver (for work)

[@warrenprezydent2010]

I triend raycast and just didnt like it, but after seeing that you can assign a hotkey to a specific app, you convinced me I am always sceptic to adding tons of apps with config, cuz at some point it becomes a mess to setup, maintain and learn, but I guess raycast might be worth it

[@emilnordgard5228]

It is a goldmine of Extensions. One of my favourite is tailwindcss

[@dgtemp]

For all the windows users, you have power toys run or use Flow launcher which is better than power toys. Works really well. Also no bs of pro plans and money grabbing. Everything opensource for windows.

[@Woofer21]

Raycast also has been teasing a windows version & have a wait list on their site.

[@George-e9c2x]

When you wanna move to Raycast but you keep pressing the Spotlight key on Magic Keyboard ⌨

[@wolfisraging]

Imagine a Raycast operating system.

[@duskfallmusic]

*side eyes the fal link, notices flux* >_> reminder toself: see if they've hooked up to civitai -- see if own trainings are on there XD

[@ChristopherBown]

I love Raycast to help manage window splits. I need to up my Raycast game though

[@eduardmoiseenkov7842]

Clipboard History is one more super useful feature