![Master Quick Actions](https://cdn.magzter.com/1384979531/1691999654/articles/sLFEnWyDO1692185621660/MASTER-QUICK-ACTIONS.jpg)
REQUIRES
macOS 12 or later
YOU WILL LEARN
How to add useful Actions to Finder
IT WILL TAKE
15 minutes
macOS IS FULL of useful things, but it's not always obvious where they are. For example, one of the really cool features in Finder is tucked away in the Ctrl-click menu under Quick Actions. Here you'll find automations to turn photos into PDFs, to open PDFs in Markup mode and to change photos from one format to another, and you can also add your own.
Creating automations used to be the job of Automator, which was brilliant but pretty intimidating to newcomers. The Shortcuts app, introduced in macOS Monterey, is much friendlier - but, as we'll discover, it's still more than capable of doing some clever and useful things.
Quick Actions are a great way to automate everyday things. You can use one to automatically crop and resize your photos, for example. In this tutorial, we'll create one that automatically joins multiple images together. We're sure you'll have your own ideas, so get experimenting and let us know what you come up with.
HOW TO Create a Quick Action
1 Find in Finder
In Finder, Ctrl-click on any file and look for the Quick Actions option. Click on it to see a list of available Actions for that file (or none, depending on the file type). Here we've Ctrl-clicked on a photo; the actions do exactly what you'd expect.
2 Start a Shortcut
You can create very complex Actions in the Automator app, but Shortcuts is much friendlier. Open Shortcuts and create a new shortcut. You should see this window, with a sidebar of suggestions on the right.
This story is from the September 2023 edition of Mac Life.
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This story is from the September 2023 edition of Mac Life.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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