App Switching using Browser-Style Keyboard Shortcuts

I use the ⌘ + 1,2,3… keyboard shortcuts in Safari/Chrome frequently to quickly activate specific tabs.

After I set up the Hyper Key on my Mac, I wanted to replicate this style of shortcut for Mac apps. Binding Hyper + 1,2,3… to my most used apps makes switching to a particular app faster and more direct.

As usual, I use Hammerspoon to set this up.

Configuring your Application List

I started by manually setting up a list of apps, but was frustrated that I had to manually update the list whenever I changed apps or ordering. However, it turns out you can read the apps in your Dock directly from a property list:

function getDockPersistentApps()
  local results = { }
    local dockPlist = hs.plist.read(os.getenv("HOME") .. "/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist")    
    local persistentApps = dockPlist['persistent-apps']
    for k, v in pairs(persistentApps) do
      local bundleId = v['tile-data']['bundle-identifier']
      local appName = v['tile-data']['file-label']
      results[#results+1] = { bundleId=bundleId, appName=appName }
    end

    return results
end

At the end, you have a Lua table with the bundle ids and app names of every app in the “persistent” part of your Dock.

Creating the Keyboard Shortcuts

Once you have the list of apps and bundle names (which always match your Dock’s apps¹), the Hammerspoon keybinding code is straightforward.

for count, app in pairs( getDockPersistentApps() ) do
    keyModal:bind({}, string(count), nil, 
        function() hs.application.launchOrFocus(app.appName) end) 
    )
end

That’s all there is to it. My current shortcuts:

This is one of my favorite and most used additions to my Mac.

Photo by Alex Perez on Unsplash