ShortcutHUD

What It Does

Press the global hotkey (default commandoptioncontrolshift/ — the hyper-key plus forward slash) and the HUD opens an adaptive multi-column grid of every shortcut it can find for your current keyboard, grouped by source.

Type to fuzzy-match against title and path. Use ↑ / ↓ to move the selection, return to activate, escape or click outside to dismiss.

Where the Shortcuts Come From

ShortcutHUD scans every source it can on your machine, gated on whether the providing app is currently running:

• Apple menu — Force Quit, Lock Screen, Log Out, … the system menu shared by every app.
• Frontmost app — the captured app’s menu bar walked via the Accessibility API. Each top-level menu (File, Edit, View, …) is an inner section inside the app’s pane.
• Other Jorvik utilities — every running Jorvik app publishes its registered global hotkeys via JorvikHotkeyRegistry; ShortcutHUD reads each one’s bindings (BrowserCommander, Browser Notes, ScreenLock, WindowPin, ActiveSpace, …).
• Per-app overrides — any app’s NSUserKeyEquivalents overrides (System Settings → Keyboard → App Shortcuts).
• Hotkey utilities — preference dicts as written by Rectangle, the KeyboardShortcuts Swift library, and similar window-management / hotkey tools.
• macOS Services — entries with a key_equivalent in pbs.plist.
• Hammerspoon — hs.hotkey.bind(…) calls in ~/.hammerspoon/*.lua.
• Keyboard Maestro — HotKey-triggered macros in the macros plist.
• System symbolic hotkeys — CopySymbolicHotKeys for the rest of macOS’s built-in bindings.

Bindings owned by apps that aren’t running don’t appear — if Hammerspoon’s dead or Rectangle quit, those entries are filtered out, because the shortcut wouldn’t fire anyway.

Bindings to keys not on any connected keyboard are also dropped — F13–F20 and the numeric keypad on a MacBook-only setup, for example. Plug a Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad in and they reappear automatically. Detection is by HID product name.

Activation

Activating an app shortcut invokes the corresponding menu item in the captured app via the Accessibility API.

Sources where ShortcutHUD can only observe the binding (Rectangle, Hammerspoon, Keyboard Maestro, Services, the symbolic hotkeys) are list-only — the HUD displays them but can’t fire them. Press the actual hotkey to invoke.

Resizing & Repositioning

The HUD is resizable from any edge and draggable from the background (anywhere that isn’t a row or the search field). The size and position persist across launches.

Settings

Click the menu-bar icon and choose Settings… to configure:

• Keyboard Shortcut — record any combination as the activation hotkey
• Accessibility — permission status and grant button
• Input Monitoring — permission status and grant button
• Menu bar icon pill — optional grey background for stronger contrast on busy or wallpaper-tinted menu bars (off by default)
• Launch at Login — start automatically when you log in

Auto-updates are handled by Sparkle. Use the “Check for Updates…” menu item to check on demand; Sparkle’s prompt offers an “Automatically download and install updates in the future” checkbox the first time an update is available. ShortcutHUD checks for new versions automatically once a day in the background.

Installation

Two formats on every release — both signed and notarised, pick whichever suits:

• Installer (.pkg) — recommended for first-time installs. Double-click to run; macOS Installer places the app in /Applications without quarantine or App Translocation.
• Download (.zip) — unzip and drag ShortcutHUD.app to your Applications folder.

After installation, launch ShortcutHUD — a ⌘ icon appears in your menu bar. Grant Accessibility and Input Monitoring permission when prompted.

Permissions

ShortcutHUD requires two permissions, both manageable from the Settings panel:

• Accessibility — required to read the menu structure of the captured app and to invoke menu items. Prompted automatically on first launch. Grant in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility.
• Input Monitoring — required by the global hotkey listener (a CGEventTap). Prompted automatically on first launch. Grant in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Input Monitoring.

The menu-bar icon shows an orange-tinted warning glyph if the event tap failed to install (typically because Input Monitoring is missing). After granting, the icon clears automatically — no relaunch required.

Coexistence with Other Hotkey Tools

ShortcutHUD installs its hotkey tap with tailAppendEventTap, so it sits after any other session-level event taps in the chain. If you use HyperCaps (or another tool that synthesises modifier flags), ShortcutHUD will see your transformed key events correctly.

Tools that consume events fully — for example a hyper-key remap that converts caps-/ into a different shortcut entirely — will hide that input from ShortcutHUD by design.

Building from Source

ShortcutHUD uses Swift Package Manager. No Xcode project is required.

1. Clone the repo: git clone https://github.com/PerpetualBeta/ShortcutHUD.git
2. Run gmake build
3. Launch with open .build/ShortcutHUD.app

Requirements

macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later.