My 6 favorite Spotlight actions in MacOS Tahoe so far - and how to add your own

Apple Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Spotlight Actions is a new feature found in MacOS Tahoe. By adding actions to Spotlight, you make it even more efficient. You can add all types of actions and as many as you need. As a longtime Linux user, I've grown accustomed to keyboard launchers that enable me to not only open apps, but also search for and open files, and do all sorts of other things. When I upgraded my MacBook Pro to Tahoe, I was excited to try the newly revamped Spotlight, which would now serve as a keyboard launcher like those I've used on Linux. Also: MacOS Tahoe finally turned me into a desktop widget user - here's why Out of the box, however, you might find the new Spotlight to be missing a few features. Those features are added by way of Actions. Spotlight can take actions based on specific keywords. For example, via Spotlight, you can now easily add events to your calendar, but before you can start doing that, you have to add the Calendar Events action. Other Actions include things like: Create note Send email Add alarm Start stopwatch Call via Facetime Connect to servers Many of the apps you have installed on MacOS Tahoe will also have their own actions. When you scroll through the list of available actions, you might find yourself overwhelmed by the sheer number. Also: 6 features I wish MacOS would copy from Linux I want to show you my favorites. Before I do, let's step through how to add an action. How to add an action to Spotlight What you'll need: To add actions to Spotlight, you'll need a MacOS device running the latest version of the OS, which is called Tahoe. 1. Open Spotlight To open Spotlight hit the Command+Space keyboard combination. Show more 2. Access the Actions section Click the icon that looks like two squares on top of one another to open the Actions section. Show more The Actions icon is second from the right. Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET 3. Add a Quick Key Locate the action you want to add and then click Add Quick Key associated with the action. When you click that, type the word you want to use as the quick key. For example, if you want to send an email from Spotlight, click Add Quick Key and type something like email. Show more As you can see, I've added email as my Quick Key for sending an email in Spotlight. Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET Once you've taken care of that, you can do the same for other actions. With that out of the way, you can close the Actions window. Also: How to send quick messages via Spotlight in MacOS Tahoe - and why I'm obsessed How to use an action Using an action is very simple (and will vary, depending on which action you've added and are using). For example, if you want to use the email action, you'd open Spotlight, type email and then double-tap the action for email. It's that simple. My 6 favorite Actions And now, on to my favorite Spotlight Actions. Here they are: Email: With this action, you can send an email directly from Spotlight. Once you've opened the Email Action, the format you use is Send message with subject to recipients. (Everything in italics is what you customize for the email to be sent.) Note: With the Note action, I can quickly add a note to the Notes app, without having to first open the app itself. The format for this action is Create note with content in folder. Alarm: I often need to create alarms, but don't want to go to the trouble of opening the clock app. Instead, I add an Alarm action for Spotlight. The format for this is Create an alarm for time called Alarm. (Italics = user input.) Craft > Create task: I used Craft as my default note-taking app and the Create Task makes it easy for me to add a task without opening the app. The format for this is Create a task task in space inside Document. To use this task, you have to have Craft installed. Print documents: With this handy action, I can print a document without having to first open the app used to create the document and then print it from there. Instead, I can open Spotlight, type my Quick Key (print), and then print a document by typing Print documents to printer. Finder > Connect to servers: This action make short shrift of connection to a server on my LAN, without having to first open Finder. This is handy when I have an application open and need to save a file to a shared folder. Instead of having to first open Finder, I can simply open Spotlight, type my Quick Key (in this case smb) and then type Connect to server at smb://computer.local (where computer.local is the IP address of the server in question). Also: How to update apps in MacOS: Two options This is how you send an email from within Spotlight. Screenshot by Jack Wallen/ZDNET And those are my favorite actions to add to Spotlight. Of course, you might have other apps installed that include actions, so make sure to check the Spotlight Actions list carefully. Once you've added all of the actions you need, you'll find Spotlight becomes even more efficient. Get the morning's top stories in your inbox each day with our Tech Today newsletter.