Hi MPUers, as a Keyboard Maestro, Alfred, and Raycast user, I am always on the lookout for new ways to optimize my workflow and increase productivity. I’m sure many others here feel the same way.
With that in mind, I would love to hear from y’all about your favorite Macros, Workflows, and Extensions that you use on these tools. Maybe just your top 5 ones. It could be anything that you find helpful and that makes your life easier, whether it’s a simple one-liner or a complex script.
Two simple ones;
A custom workflow for appending text to daily log in Logseq using Shortcuts. Command - Shift - L brings up a little box in which I type and hit Cmd - Return. It goes into today’s note in Logseq and we can continue working in the current app.
A custom workflow with ml keyword that presses the Moom hotkey and then I press a number to resize current window or center it. CleanShot 2023-04-02 at 13.54.08@2x.png - Droplr
A custom palette that adds various builder elements when building WordPress websites visually using Bricks builder.
I use Keyboard Maestro to fix the period on my numeric keypad (as it is a Spanish keyboard that has a comma), to make the ç character on my keyboard produce the hash symbol (#) for markdown, to quickly enable images in emails, and for clipboard history. I don’t use it for window management as I find Magnet works much better and supports dragging the window as well as keyboard shortcuts.
I use Alfred, but I do not use any workflows.
Which app is it used in? In gmail, its just a click on top of the email.
I use it in Apple Mail to click the button to load images, as there’s no keyboard shortcut (thanks to David’s tutorial!).
I have automated several things around work with Keyboard Maestro (and Stream Deck) like
And I still feel like I haven’t touched the surface of what possible with those tools 
Alfred saves me a ton of time:
I’d love to use Alfred to automate some of my HomeKit stuff but haven’t dug into that yet.
My top Keyboard Maestro tip is a technique, rather than a specific workflow.
It’s to investigate how to create Macro Palettes – e.g. menus and submenus you create either globally or for specific programs.
e.g. for Scrivener, I can type opt-m and bring up this palette:
You’ll see that some items share the same shortcut, so that pressing d for example brings up a submenu (KM calls it a ‘conflict palette’) of commands just for documents. You don’t have to wait for the palette to load, so for example, opt-m d s can be typed quickly for New Split from Text.
Of course I could use the default Keyboard Shortcut mechanism to create shortcuts in System Settings, but this has two problems: firstly you run out of shortcuts quickly, and secondly, you have to recreate these on every device, and every time you reinstall. It’s much quicker to have the palettes in KM and therefore available immediately.
In Scrivener, I have three main palettes (Main, Collections and Styles), so I only need to remember three shortcuts and I have all my regularly used features to hand. Here’s the definition for the Styles palette:
I hope this technique is of interest to someone…
Is this like opening arranging a few specific windows or something else?
I’ve only used basic shortcuts with KM. So Palette is like a popup that opens up and we can trigger more actions from there?
Yes, that’s right. They’re basically do it yourself menus, but you decide whether they’re just for a single app, multiple apps, or global.
Obviously, you add any KM macro to a palette, it’s not just for replacing menu commands.
E.g. I have all my markdown shortcuts, plus things like date insertion formats on a single global shortcut - ctl-shift-;.By now I know that this shortcut followed by " is the command 'surround the selected text in double quotation marks", so I just type it straight off, but the palette is there in case I forget the last letter. Very useful!
Oh. I didn’t know it could be for multiple apps. I thought it would be either at an app level or global. How to make it for multiple apps? I used to copy paste lol
For popups, I usually use Alfred
Exactly, rather simple: opening specific apps, files or websites and position them automatically where I need them. In one scenario I need to download an excel file with which I have opened automatically by Hazel, positioned as well and at a later time automatically deleted. No rocket science but the convenience level is pretty nice 
This is without doubt the killer feature in KM for me.
Sadly, I didn’t use it for about a year because the name, conflict palette, sounds like something is going wrong rather than something going wonderfully right.
I semi-regularly use about 20 macros and have 20 more, but only about 4-5 shortcuts to remember.
I love using Keyboard Maestro to customize my apps. I make heavy use a macro groups to crate floating palettes of my most commonly used workflows.
In my Organize workflow, I try to get close to Inbox Zero during a 30-45 minute inbox processing time block every day. I can clear my OmniFocus inbox, email inboxes, Mac folders (downloads, Dropbox, iCloud Drive), Drafts sheets to process, etc.
In my GTD palette, my first macro arranges OmniFocus and Fantastical next to each other and switches to particular views. OmniFocus switches to my “Today” perspective and Fantastical switches over to the “Day View” and jumps to today so I can see what I need to work on today.
The Review projects macro just jumps to OmniFocus and goes into the Review perspective to review my projects.
The “preview” macros (daily, weekly, monthly) gives me a series of prompts and guides me through my review workflow. I start off with prompts giving me instructions of what to do. It goes to various apps and jumps to the correct perspective or screen. When I click “Next”, it will go to the next screen.
Having the prompts speeds up the GTD daily review, weekly review, and monthly review workflow. Here’s the screen grabs from my Daily Review workflow:
Go to the Agenda app and process any pending meeting notes or review client case histories for the day.
Scan any receipts or paper notes from my physical inbox. Clear my Social Media inboxes for the business (Facebook, Instagram). clear out my OmniFocus inbox. Apply projects and tags to any OmniFocus inbox items.
Go to my OmniFocus Review perspective to see what projects needs to be reviewed!
Review any Waiting For’s and review any agenda items in OmniFocus when I need to talk to certain people.
Check my recently completed tasks and create follow-up tasks if needed.
Update currently available actions in OmniFocus. Reconcile OmniFocus with reality.
Move OmniFocus window to the left and Fantastical to the right. Drag and drop OmniFocus projects and tasks into tomorrow’s schedule.
Daily review finished. It’s mostly a series of prompts and going to the right application view to help me with the daily review.
That was my personal guided tour through the Daily Review. The Weekly Review and Monthly Review has different questions focusing on the different Horizons of Focus.
Customizing OmniFocus with Keyboard Maestro has been a godsend for me.
Love those user inputs 
… I might incorporate some in my macros/workflows as well - especially with those numbered steps. Thanks 
for that idea.
Most of mine centre on one of the ultimate useful features of Keyboard Maestro: paste by typing
As I am dependent on corporate environments where pasting is not allowed I heavily use paste by typing in my workflows
A very simple trick but I love it!
I have different palettes for different apps (plus a global one) all triggered by control+backtick
The global palette (which does not trigger in apps with their own pallets) has a mix of macros, for example I have about 20 CMS admin areas I need to log into regularly, plus launching invoicing software, file grab for a client which downloads a css file strips out the top line, saves it, launches shopify and file manager so I can just drag the file into the page. I use most of these every day.
I have a palette for Pixelmator pro which fetches watermarks from various file locations and bangs them on an image, this is a service I offer for several clients and use at least once a day sometimes much more.
I have been experimenting with triggering shortcuts with KBM using time based triggers, for example to process my Things3 inbox where certain things arrive via mail drop in a predefined format so can be auto filed, dated and tagged.
There are many more per app palettes plus of course there usual global macros like insert date, in ISO format again something I use a lot, plus text expansions. If I had more time to invest in it I would probably get more use out of KBM.
