The Complete Raycast Guide: Replace Spotlight and Supercharge Your Mac
Raycast is a productivity powerhouse on the Mac — a launcher, a toolbox, and a scripting platform all rolled into one.
This guide walks you through getting the most out of Raycast.
Why Choose Raycast
- Blazing-fast launch speed
- A rich ecosystem of extensions
- Built-in window management, clipboard history, and translation
- Support for custom scripts
- The free tier is already impressively powerful
Installation
Download it from https://www.raycast.com, then set the shortcut ⌥ Space to replace the default ⌘ Space.
Must-Have Extensions
Productivity
- Clipboard History - clipboard history
- Window Management - window management
- Emoji Search - emoji search
- Quicklinks - custom quick links
Development
- Git - Git quick actions
- GitHub - GitHub integration
- Kill Process - kill processes
- Port Manager - port management
Everyday
- System Monitoring - system monitoring
- Timer - pomodoro timer
- Calendar - calendar integration
- Translate - translation
Custom Scripts
Raycast supports JavaScript, Bash, and Python scripts.
For example, querying the weather:
Advanced Tips
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AI integration: One-click calls to ChatGPT / Claude
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Snippets: Quick input of code snippets
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Quicklinks: Custom URL schemes
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Aliases: Custom command aliases
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Author: Xiaozha Blog
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License: This article is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Please attribute the source when sharing.