Super-quick way to make a temporary "keyboard shortcut" to a menu item

This is kinda cheating because it’s not really a keyboard shortcut as such, more like a short key sequence. But it only takes about 1 second to set up, so if you only need it temporarily, it can still save you a bunch of time repeatedly mousing to a menu item. I use all the time to make repetitive tasks quicker.

If there’s a menu item in the program you’re using which doesn’t have an assigned shortcut, but you can’t be bothered to go all the way into Keyboard Maestro or System Preferences to set up a new one, you can instead use this trick with the Help menu:

  • Go into the Help menu and type in the exact name of the menu item into the search box.
    • You should see the menu item be listed below, and you can mouse-over to check it’s the right one.
  • Because the last thing you searched for persists for a few minutes, you can now type the key sequence:
    • Cmd-shift-/ (brings up the help menu and focusses the search box, with your last search still there)
    • Down arrow (highlight the menu item)
    • Enter (confirm the selection)
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Great tip, @cai. I make use of the ⌘⇧/ shortcut regularly…especially when using apps that have a lot of menu items.

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