Table of Contents
Intro
Raycast is an incredible productivity tool, an insanely fast launcher that supercharges your Mac to optimize your workflow.
It comes with powerful built-in extensions, and you can install even more from its thriving community store. Besides, if you’re a developer, it is also easy to build your own extensions with their simple-to-use APIs and React.
And the best part is most of its features are available for free. But let’s dive in straight to what’s in my Raycast.
Backstory
In August 2022, the Raycast team invited users to share how they were using Raycast so they could feature some of their stories and tips. They shared them in their Community Stories site.
I was lucky enough to make it there, and here’s my story if you would like to read it:
Anyway, as I mentioned, it was 2022, quite some time ago, and Raycast has evolved a lot since then, and so has the way I use it.
Later, in mid 2023, Pedro Duarte, who works at Raycast, shared an idea of making videos on how people used Raycast. Pretty much what the community stories were, but in video format.
I suggested the What's in my Raycast name, and he liked it and now there’s a series of videos on YouTube for that.
I don’t really think I’d ever make it to a video there, and I’m also too shy to do it. But here’s my (updated) text version of it, which I am more comfortable at sharing 😅.
So, without further ado, let’s jump straight to What’s in my Raycast
Built-in Features
App launcher
Not much to say about it, but given Raycast is a replacement to Spotlight, I for sure use it to launch any app in my Mac.
Anyway, a cool feature of it, is that I can select which apps can be launched with Raycast, meaning I can hide some apps I never use or open, like most of the macOS system apps.
Calculator
This is the most powerful built-in feature if I may say.
And it is not only a math calculator, but also a unit converter, a color formatter, and so much more.
I could probably keep going and going, but you get the idea. And there’s probably even more calculations it can do that I don’t even know of 😨.
Calendar
This one provides quick access to my calendar events right from within Raycast, and even has a menu bar option, to display the upcoming events.
Screenshots
A quick way to access your recent screenshots allowing you to paste them anywhere and more. I also have a shortcut for this command: ss to get to it even faster.
Emoji search
This one replaced the system emoji search, and it also includes unicode symbols, and AI powered suggestions.
Extensions
Here’s a list of the extensions I use the most:
Quicklinks
I mostly use Quicklinks to work as my browser bookmarks. But they even allow you to use search queries, to open the link with them.
For example, I use one to search for FontAwesome icons:
https://fontawesome.com/v5/search?q={Query}&o=r&s=solid
which looks like this when used:
Snippets
This feature basically allows you to replace text with something else, for example, if I typed !gh-table, the following markdown would be inserted:
| Title1 | Title2 |
| -------- | -------- |
| Content1 | Content2 |
It also allows you to do some more advanced stuff like using text in the clipboard, setting the cursor position, and more:
Pro-only Features
I am currently using Raycast Pro, which allows me to use some additional features, such as Raycast AI and custom themes. There’s more to it, of course, but those are the two features I actually use.
Raycast AI
You can quickly ask for things as you would when using ChatGPT. Yes, you could simply go to ChatGPT’s website and do it there, but I feel this feature is more about having it available directly from Raycast.
Custom themes
I have created two custom themes based on this website’s color scheme, and if you click on these links you will be able to install them to your Raycast (if you use Raycast Pro).
What I’d like to see
- Themes to be available for free. It’s mostly the only feature keeping me using Raycast Pro.
- Built-in emoji replacement, so that if I typed
:grinning:anywhere, Raycast would insert the 😀 emoji. - A mobile app to access Raycast features anywhere, not just on your Mac.
Raycast has been becoming more and more powerful that it’s honeslty hard to think of new features when they already include a ton 😅.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed exploring more about Raycast possibilities and features, and are inspired to use it in different ways or are excited to give it a try if you haven’t yet.
I also would like to mention they create pretty cool wallpapers for you to use for free, so check them out. I used one of them for this blog post hero image, I hope they don’t mind 🫣.
That’s it for now, until next time! 👋
