One of the most common activities when using a computer is switching between apps and their windows. Unfortunately macOS is optimised for casual computer users (Mission Control, using the mouse, etc.).

2026 Update: While this post originally described my setup using BetterTouchTool, I’ve since switched to Raycast for managing my application shortcuts. See the update at the bottom for details on my current setup.

Using the dock

This approach requires the mouse and wastes either screen space, or has a slow animation when using auto-hide.

Using CMD + Tab

This approach is keyboard based, however the order of the application is sorted by most recently used, which is only nice to quickly switch between 2 applications.

Additionally this technique doesn’t allow you to launch a new application, but only switch between running ones.

Using Spotlight or Alfred

 

Great to quickly launch any application, however it’s not as fast as other approaches, as it requires you to type in multiple letters.

New: Launch every application using a shortcut

When people watch me use my computer I get asked a lot how I can switch between my applications so quickly.

I’m not kidding, I have a custom keyboard shortcut for every single application I use frequently.

This way I can always switch to any application just using one keyboard shortcut.

I use the excellent tool called BetterTouchTool, which was originally built to use custom gestures for the trackpad and mouse, however I use it mostly for my shortcuts. 

Using BetterTouchTool, it will either switch to a running application or launch it otherwise.

Some tricks:

  • ALT + [letter]: Open a specific application (e.g. ALT + n launches Notes)
  • Alt + 2: Open the screenshots directory (use this for any directory you use often)
  • Ctrl + CMD + Arrow: Move window to next monitor

For even faster switches, change the BTT trigger to use "Trigger on Key Down".

2026 Update: Using Raycast

Nowadays I’m a heavy user of Raycast. I’ve migrated all my custom shortcuts to Raycast directly, which has the added benefit of helping me learn and remember the shortcuts better. Raycast shows the keyboard shortcut right inline with each command.

Raycast showing Activity Monitor with inline shortcut display

I also recently added a shortcut for Ctrl + Alt + Del to open Activity Monitor - easy to use from very old muscle memory.