Raycast is lastly on Home windows, and it completely modified how I take advantage of my PC
Final month, probably the greatest productiveness apps for Mac lastly grew to become obtainable for Home windows. That’s Raycast, which is sort of a keyboard-controlled Swiss Military Knife to your laptop. Open Raycast with a keyboard shortcut (Alt + House by default on Home windows and Possibility + House on a Mac) to rapidly lookup information, launch apps, search the online, and extra… all from a single textual content field.
Whereas Apple’s Highlight characteristic supplies comparable utility on Macs, Raycast is extra highly effective and versatile—and it now works on Home windows PCs as effectively. Most of its performance is free, with an non-compulsory subscription for syncing information throughout units and utilizing sure AI options.
Raycast generally is a bit daunting at first, however it might really feel like a superpower when you get rolling with it. To offer you an thought of how helpful it may be, listed below are some methods I’m utilizing it myself.
This column first appeared in Advisorator, Jared’s weekly tech recommendation e-newsletter. Join to get tech recommendation like this each Tuesday.
On the spot calculations and unit conversions
Jared Newman / Foundry
Raycast’s built-in calculator could be the one characteristic I take advantage of greater than anything. With out ever taking my fingers off the keyboard, I can open Raycast, kind in an expression, and see the end result instantly, with the Enter key even copying the reply to the clipboard. It’s a lot quicker than reaching for a separate calculator app.
Discovering information (and folders) quicker
Jared Newman / Foundry
My file system is fairly organized, however opening a particular file or folder by Raycast continues to be quicker than digging by File Explorer. The place Raycast actually shines is its “Quicklinks” characteristic that makes your favourite information or folders even simpler to entry.
When you’ve saved a Quicklink, you’ll be able to pin it to Raycast’s predominant menu, which helps you to open it with a customized keyboard shortcut or simply discover it extra simply in Raycast’s search outcomes. I’ve pinned my Downloads and work photos folders in order that they’re by no means various keystrokes away.
An expanded clipboard
Jared Newman / Foundry
Whereas macOS Tahoe now features a clipboard historical past characteristic, Raycast’s model is healthier. You may open it immediately with a customized keyboard shortcut—no must hit Command + House first—and may optionally paste as plain textual content. Raycast’s clipboard historical past can be searchable, and it affords a pleasant view of copied photos. I’ve began utilizing it instead of the built-in clipboard supervisor in Home windows as effectively.
Clipboard historical past is an efficient option to get aware of Raycast’s “Hotkeys,” which allow you to take actions with out even opening the primary Raycast window. (I’ve mapped Raycast’s clipboard supervisor to Ctrl + V on macOS and Home windows key + V on Home windows.)
Fast textual content snippets
Jared Newman / Foundry
Raycast’s “Snippets” instrument permits you to flip small textual content fragments into bigger blocks of textual content, which cuts down on repetitive typing. For example:
- I can kind
@advto write down “[email protected]” - I can kind
@adrto write down my mailing deal with. - To swat away PR pitches, I can kind
!gopa, which then prompts me for the PR rep’s title and writes “Hello [name], thanks for reaching out. Gonna move on this one. Thanks — Jared.”
You may set all this up by Raycast’s simple “Create Snippet” menu, the place the Snippet is what you wish to write and the Key phrase is what you kind to set off the snippet conversion.
I’ve beforehand sung the praises of a free Home windows app known as Beeftext for this objective, but it surely’s now not being actively maintained and there’s no Mac model. Moreover, Raycast’s implementation is definitely searchable in case I neglect the shortcut for a selected snippet.
Window administration
Jared Newman / Foundry
After switching to an ultrawide monitor, I’m typically transferring my home windows into and out of split-screen mode. Raycast makes that simpler by letting you resize home windows with keyboard instructions. For example, I can transfer Obsidian into the center of the display screen to deal with writing, or break up it 33.3%/66.6% with my net browser whereas researching.
That is additionally a great way to get acquainted with Raycast’s “Command Aliases” characteristic, which helps you to execute instructions with much less typing. I’ve set it up in order that typing LT into Raycast strikes an app to the left third of the display screen whereas typing RTT strikes an app to the appropriate two thirds.
Checking my calendar
Jared Newman / Foundry
Seeing what’s developing on my calendar at all times takes extra clicking and typing than I would like. Fortunately, Raycast affords a Google Calendar extension for rapidly viewing your upcoming agenda.
This is among the many third-party extensions you can set up to make Raycast much more helpful. Simply kind “Retailer” into Raycast and also you’ll be capable to peruse every kind of free enhancements. The one I’m utilizing for my calendar is just known as “Google Calendar.”
Whether or not you employ Raycast or not, this class of “command bar” apps is one you ought to be conscious of, because it’s an rising space of curiosity for tech firms. Apple has beefed up Highlight in macOS Tahoe to compete extra instantly with Raycast, and Microsoft is constructing one thing comparable with Command Palette in its free PowerToys app. ChatGPT’s Mac app and Google’s new Home windows app use the identical command bar idea with an emphasis on AI, too.
With the rise of AI instruments like ChatGPT, I feel people are warming to the thought of asking their laptop to do issues as an alternative of continually clicking round manually. When you get used to doing that with Raycast, it’s onerous to think about utilizing your laptop with out it.
This column first appeared in Advisorator, Jared’s weekly tech recommendation e-newsletter. Join to get tech recommendation like this each Tuesday.
