How to create a shortcut in a Mac for an app or a setting

Three unrelated things on a Mac answer to the word shortcut, and each one is made in a different place. An icon that points at an app or a folder is an alias. A key combination that fires a menu command is a keyboard shortcut. A saved sequence of actions, which can also be triggered by a key combination, is a shortcut in the Shortcuts app. Choosing the wrong one is the usual reason a search for this ends in the wrong settings pane.

The distinction is not pedantry. Each of the three has a hard limit that the other two do not, and the limits are what decide the route. An alias cannot carry a key combination. A custom keyboard shortcut cannot open an app. A Shortcuts automation can do both but has to be built first.

The three things, side by side

Before opening any settings, it is worth knowing which of these the task needs.

What it is	What it can point at	Where it is made
Alias	A file, folder, app or disk	The Finder, with File then Make Alias
App keyboard shortcut	A menu command inside an app	System Settings, Keyboard, Keyboard Shortcuts
Shortcut in the Shortcuts app	A sequence of actions, including opening an app	The Shortcuts app
Quick key	An action or a shortcut, typed into Spotlight	Spotlight

The fourth row is newer than the other three and is the one most people have not met. It is covered further down.

A rough rule covers most cases. If the goal is something clickable, the answer is an alias, and its home is the desktop, the Dock or the Finder sidebar. If the goal is a key combination for something already in a menu, the answer is App Shortcuts in Keyboard settings. If the goal is a key combination for anything else, including launching an app, the answer is a shortcut in the Shortcuts app with a key combination attached to it.

Making an alias for an app, a file or a folder

This is the oldest and simplest of the three, and it is what most people mean by a desktop shortcut.

Select the item in the Finder, then choose File and Make Alias. Apple documents a faster route for the same thing:

Press Option-Command while you drag the original item to another folder or to the desktop to create an alias and move it in one step. Source: support.apple.com, read September 27, 2026

Nothing limits how many aliases an item can have, and they can sit in different places at once. Opening one opens the original.

The part worth knowing is that the Dock and the Finder sidebar are built out of the same mechanism. What appears there is an alias, not the app or folder itself. Dragging an item out of the Dock or out of the sidebar removes only that alias, and the original stays where it was. That is why removing something from the Dock is safe and reversible, and why it is the wrong tool for actually uninstalling anything.

When the origin of a Dock or sidebar item is unclear, the Finder will say. Control-click an item in the sidebar and choose Show in Enclosing Folder. Control-click an item in the Dock and choose Options, then Show in Finder.

On current macOS there is one more source for these icons. Apps are browsed in Spotlight rather than in Launchpad, and an app can be dragged out of that browsing window straight to the Dock or to the desktop. The app stays listed in Spotlight either way.

When a pointer goes stale

Because an alias points at a path rather than carrying the item, moving or renaming the original can break it. The same applies to anything set to open at login, and there the system says so plainly. In System Settings, under General then Login Items and Extensions, a yellow triangle next to an entry means that item will not open automatically because it was moved or deleted. Removing the entry with the minus button and adding it again with the plus button is the whole repair.

This is worth checking early when a shortcut that has worked for months suddenly does nothing, particularly after an app has been reinstalled or moved between the main Applications folder and the one inside the home folder. An app can legitimately live in either, and a pointer built against one will not follow it to the other.

A key combination for a command that already exists

This is the route for something like giving Export as PDF a key of its own, and it lives in System Settings rather than in the app.

Open System Settings, click Keyboard in the sidebar, then click Keyboard Shortcuts. Select App Shortcuts on the left and click the Add button. Choose the app from the Application pop-up menu, or choose All Applications for a command that appears in many apps. If the app is not listed, choose Other and point the Open dialog at it.

The next field is where this goes wrong most often. The Menu title field wants the menu path typed out exactly as the app spells it, with a specific substitution for the separator.

In the "Menu title" field, type the menu command for which you want to create a shortcut, exactly as the command appears in the app, including the > character (type ->), ellipses (type three periods without spaces), or other punctuation. Source: support.apple.com, read September 27, 2026

So File then Export as PDF is typed as File->Export as PDF followed by three periods, because that is how the menu shows it. Get the spelling or the punctuation wrong and the shortcut is created but never fires, with no error to explain why.

Then click in the Keyboard shortcut field, press the combination, and click Done. A key can appear only once in a combination.

Two limits are worth reading before spending time here. A custom shortcut can only be attached to a menu command that already exists, so there is no way to make one that opens an app. And a combination that is already taken silently does nothing, which means a shortcut that appears in the list and still fails is usually a collision rather than a typo.

A key combination for anything else

Everything the previous section cannot do belongs to the Shortcuts app, and this is the part that turns a key combination into a general purpose trigger.

Build the shortcut first. A one step shortcut built from the Open App action is enough to launch something, and it can be as elaborate as needed after that. Then open the shortcut, click the info button, click Add Keyboard Shortcut, and press the combination. Apple notes a limit on that last step: some combinations are reserved by the system and cannot be taken over. To drop the combination later, click the Run with field and press Delete.

The same details pane is where a shortcut is exposed to the rest of the system rather than only to the keyboard. Show in Share Sheet puts it behind the Share button in other apps. Use as Quick Action puts it in the Control-click menu in the Finder, though that one also has to be switched on under Privacy and Security, then Extensions, then Finder. Services Menu puts it in the Services submenu.

Shortcuts can also be reached without any of that. Pressing Command-Space and typing the name runs one straight from Spotlight, and Command-3 narrows the search to actions only. That is often faster than assigning a key combination, because there is nothing to remember and nothing to collide with.

Quick keys, the shortest route of the four

Spotlight has its own abbreviation system, and it is the newest of the options here. A short string of letters is bound to an action, and typing that string in Spotlight runs it.

Apple's own example is a two letter key for placing a FaceTime call:

For example, if you often make FaceTime calls, you can assign "ft" as a quick key for the Start FaceTime Call action. When you type "ft" in Spotlight, it will prompt you to enter a contact in the Spotlight search field. Source: support.apple.com, read September 27, 2026

To assign one, open Spotlight, press Command-3 to show actions, then click Add quick keys next to the action and type the string. Apple also notes that suggested quick keys get assigned automatically after an action has been run once, which is worth knowing before wondering where an unfamiliar abbreviation came from.

The trade-off against a key combination is clear enough. A quick key needs Spotlight open first, so it is two steps rather than one. In exchange it cannot collide with anything an app has already claimed, and there is no ceiling on how many can exist. For anything used a few times a day rather than a few times an hour, it is usually the better bargain.

Where a shortcut ends up living, and what that costs

Once a shortcut exists, the question is where it can be reached from, and this is where a tidy system quietly stops being tidy.

A shortcut can be put in the Dock with File then Add to Dock. It can be put in Control Center by opening Control Center, clicking Edit Controls, choosing Shortcuts on the left and then picking Open App, Run Shortcut or Show Menu Bar Collection, and clicking Add to Control Center. It can be reached from the Services menu, from the Finder's Quick Actions menu, from a widget, and from Spotlight.

Each of those is free except one. Anything that ends up as its own item at the right end of the menu bar takes horizontal space that never comes back, and the menu bar has no scroll and no second row. On a laptop with a notch, items past a certain count simply do not render. The result is a strip where the one status menu that actually matters is the hardest to find.

Two built in controls help a little. Command-dragging a status menu moves it, and Command-dragging it out of the menu bar removes it. Neither creates room; they only decide what gets cut. Keeping the count low is the real fix, and the features page covers what a dedicated tool does with the icons that have to stay. The comparison page sets out how the available approaches differ.

The general rule that keeps this under control: reach shortcuts by keyboard or by Spotlight wherever possible, and spend permanent menu bar space only on things that have to be readable at a glance without a click.

What to change first

Decide which of the four kinds the task actually needs before opening any settings, because three of the four routes cannot do what the others do. Start with a Shortcuts automation plus a key combination if the goal is to launch something, and with App Shortcuts in Keyboard settings if the goal is a menu command that already exists. If the menu bar has filled up with the icons that came along the way, Koffret is the part of the tidying the built in settings do not cover.