Raycast

Raycast is a free, extensible launcher for macOS that replaces Spotlight with a keyboard-driven command palette capable of controlling apps, running scripts, managing windows, searching files, and integrating with hundreds of third-party services.

What is Raycast?

Raycast is a productivity launcher that gives every action on your Mac a keyboard shortcut and a search box. Where Spotlight hands you a file list and steps back, Raycast hands you a command line for your entire operating system — and then gets out of the way.

You invoke it with a hotkey (I keep mine on ⌥ Space), type a few letters, and within a second you've opened an app, pasted a snippet, queried a Jira board, translated a phrase, or resized a window to the left half of your screen. The surface is minimal; the depth is almost absurd.

What does Raycast do best?

Raycast's greatest strength is the breadth of things it can eliminate from your mouse hand. Window management, clipboard history, snippet expansion, system commands, and unit conversion all live in the same search field — no separate app needed for any of them.

• Window management — snap, tile, move between displays, and resize windows with named commands. I haven't touched Rectangle since.
• Clipboard history — a scrollable, searchable log of everything you've copied, persistent across reboots. Paste-as-plain-text is one keystroke away.
• Snippets — type a short trigger like ;addr and Raycast expands it anywhere on the system. TextExpander territory, for free.
• Extensions — the Raycast Store has thousands of community-built integrations: GitHub pull request review, Linear issue creation, Vercel deploys, Obsidian vault search, and much more. Most are open-source and take seconds to install.
• AI commands (Pro) — write, rewrite, translate, summarise, or chat with an AI model without leaving the launcher.

The extension ecosystem is what separates Raycast from alternatives like Alfred or Apple's own Spotlight. Alfred's power-user ceiling is higher if you write complex AppleScript workflows, but Raycast's extension model — built in React, published through a curated store — lowers the barrier for contributors dramatically, and the quality shows.

Is Raycast free?

Yes — Raycast's core launcher, including window management, clipboard history, snippets, file search, and the full extension store, is completely free with no trial period or feature expiry.

A Pro plan adds AI features (the built-in AI chat and AI commands across extensions), cloud sync for snippets and history, and a handful of power-user perks. If you work in a team, Raycast for Teams adds shared snippets, a shared AI model budget, and admin controls. For solo Mac power-users, the free tier is genuinely complete — I ran it for months before ever looking at Pro.

Who should use Raycast?

Raycast is ideal for any Mac user who reaches for the mouse more than they'd like — developers, designers, writers, and ops folks who juggle a dozen tools simultaneously will feel the largest gains.

If your workflow already leans keyboard-first and you've outgrown Spotlight's basic app-launching, Raycast will feel like a gear shift. The productivity lift is immediate on day one and compounds as you discover which extensions map onto your actual toolchain. If you primarily use the mouse and rarely use keyboard shortcuts, the learning curve is steeper and the payoff takes longer — in that case, Spotlight remains simpler and Raycast might feel like overkill.

How does Raycast compare to Alfred?

Alfred is the long-established king of Mac launchers and remains a powerful choice, but Raycast has eroded its lead substantially since launching natively on Apple Silicon.

Alfred's Powerpack unlocks a genuinely deep workflow engine with branching logic, AppleScript, and shell actions that Raycast still can't fully match for complex automations. But Alfred's extension ecosystem (called Workflows) requires individual purchase or community hunting; Raycast's Store is curated, searchable, and free to browse. Raycast is also native to Apple Silicon from the ground up, ships faster iterations, and its built-in features — window management, clipboard — are out of the box rather than bolted on. For most people starting fresh today, Raycast is the easier recommendation. Alfred loyalists with mature Workflow libraries have less reason to switch.

What are the best Raycast alternatives?

The main alternatives are Alfred (deeper workflow engine, paid Powerpack), Spotlight (built-in, zero config, zero extensions), and LaunchBar (keyboard-centric, long-standing, excellent learn-by-use UX). For pure window management, Rectangle or Moom fill that slice without the broader launcher overhead. None of them bundle everything Raycast does in a single free package.