Raycast - the first app I install on every Mac

App Launcher

Fuzzy search with frecency ranking. Type a few letters, hit Enter — faster than Spotlight, and it learns your habits.

Clipboard History

One of the best built-in features. By default, macOS only holds one thing in your clipboard — with Raycast you get a seemingly unending history that even survives a restart. Text, images, colors, links — all searchable. If a screenshot or image contains text, you can search for that text too. Pin the most used items and reuse whenever you want. It may sound silly, but I use clipboard history multiple times a day.

Window Management

Snap windows to halves, thirds, quarters with custom hotkeys. I often work with two windows side by side — one left, one right. My shortcuts: Ctrl+Opt+← for left half, Ctrl+Opt+→ for right half, Ctrl+Opt+↑ for full screen. Replaces Rectangle, Magnet, and similar apps.

Snippets

Text expansion with keywords. Type a short keyword, and it expands to a full text block. Supports dynamic placeholders like {cursor} to position your cursor after expansion — e.g. console.log({cursor}) places you right between the parentheses. Some of mine:

• \mail → nurs.asanov@pm.me
• \li → https://www.linkedin.com/in/nursultan-asanov/
• \raddr → 3rd Floor, 1 Ashley Road, Altrincham, Cheshire, United Kingdom, WA14 2DT
• clg → console.log()

Calculator & Unit Converter

Inline math and unit conversions right in the launcher. Press Enter to copy the result to clipboard.

• 150 usd to kgs → currency conversion
• 5ft in cm → 152.4 cm
• 23% of 5430 → 1,248.9
• time in Bishkek → world clock
• days until 31st of july → date countdown

File Search

Instant file search with inline preview. Faster than Finder search and shows file contents without opening them.

Floating Notes

Quick notes that float on top of all windows. Supports markdown, checklists, and character counts. Free plan limits you to 5 notes — enough for me, bigger and detailed notes go in Notion.

Quicklinks

Custom URL shortcuts with parameters. Type "gh {query}" to jump straight to a GitHub repo, or "jira {ticket}" to open a Jira issue. Some of mine:

• g → Google search
• hdr → HDRezka search
• you → YouTube search

Script Commands

If you find yourself doing the same actions repeatedly, scripting in Raycast can help automate them, reducing friction and saving time. Navigate to Extensions > Create Script Command, write a simple script in Bash, Python, or Node.js, and assign a keyword or shortcut to trigger it instantly. Step-by-step guide

Search Screenshots

Search within your screenshots by text content — Raycast OCRs them so you can find any screenshot by what's written on it. Not a full system search, it's a dedicated command you invoke from the launcher.