Way, way back in the day, back when Macs were beige and I laughed at women who used wrinkle cream and Spanx, the Mac had a not-so-secret navigation option that let you go anywhere on the Mac with a click to the Apple icon in the Menubar.
Nothing good is easy, and that shortcut took some time to set up and use properly, and a bit of trial and error was involved, but in the end, one click let you avoid the Mac’s Finder and navigate to any file, any folder, even any Mac app with little more than a click.
That’s not so easily done in the 21st century even with macOS Sierra. Yes, the Dock is easy, but only for apps easily visible and the most used. Take a look at Shortcut Bar. This utility brings back a little of the one-click navigation we Mac users had back when Macs were mostly beige, before the candy colored goodness of the Bondi Blue or Dalmatian iMac.
Click the Menubar, go where you want.
Shortcut Bar works about as simply as the original Apple icon in Mac OS from back in the day. There’s still a pop down window. There’s still a need to set up what you want to navigate to.
The app comes with an option for dark mode or light mode. Just add a shortcut (also called an alias). Shortcut Bar doesn’t even care about where the shortcut goes or what it does. File, folder, app, whatever.
Click the Mac’s Menubar and select whatever shortcut you created. But note that you can organize files and folders– the aliases– into groups with specific customizable names. It can even open the Finder so you can see where the file, folder, or app is located.
Managing Shortcut Bar is equally simple. Open the app, select Manage Shortcuts from the sidebar. Create a Shortcut Group. Create an alias for each file, folder, or app you want to appear in the drop down menu. Each item in a group can also be moved up or down in the list hierarchy.
Why use Shortcut Bar?
Duh. Shortcuts. Instead of rummaging through the Finder or trying to find a specific app icon in the Dock, just click the Menubar icon, select the group, select the app or file you want. Whatever icons the Finder users to identify apps, files, or folders show up in the drop down Menubar list, so navigating is familiar. What I find interesting is the obvious. Shortcut Bar brings back a little of the Apple icon hierarchy menu from yesteryear for those of us to enjoy in the 21st century. But Apple didn’t bother to include the same functionality in macOS Sierra.
