Valentin Chrétien
Valentin Chrétien
I’m Valentin, a designer turned entrepreneur. I co-founded Specify to help product teams automate workflows and maintain their design system.

Favorite feature

At first glance, one might think Raycast is just a simple macOS launcher. But it's much more than that, and the native features are the proof. They are so well thought out that they save you a lot of time daily. I've removed a lot of tools from my stack thanks to it.

Here are the top 5 of my favorite features:

  • Window Management
  • Clipboard History
  • My Schedule
  • My Reminders
  • Floating Notes

Most used commands, quicklinks, scripts, and snippets

Window Management is undoubtedly my favorite command. Coupled with the hotkeys, it allows me to easily manage my windows on my different screens, which is very useful when you work at home. In my team, we even set the Almost Maximize command standard when we record demo videos of our product. This way, we ensure the same spacing between our app window and the edge of our screen. It's all about the little big details.

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I use Quicklinks daily, whether it's to access my favorite tools in my browser, open my favorite Notion documents or even open a folder on my Mac. But my favorite quicklink is the Clearbit API URL. By adding an argument to the end of the URL, Raycast allows me to type in a company's website, and I instantly access their logo.

Here is the link: logo.clearbit.com/{url}

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I use one of my personal scripts a lot which allows me to display some values like Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) or Lifetime Value (LTV) from Baremetrics. It allows me to keep an eye on the business KPIs.

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I also use the command script Open Clipboad URL on Desktop which allows me to open a link copied in the dedicated app. Very useful to open a Linear, Figma, Notion or Pitch link for example.

We do our daily stand-up asynchronously via Slack at Specify. We’ve created a handy snippet that allows us to have a message template we use daily. This snippet is shared with the team through Raycast Teams; everyone can associate it with a keyword. In my case, I just need to type !standup and my message will be displayed instead.

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Top extensions from the Store

I use Figma File Search and Google Workspace a lot to quickly search for files stored in Figma or Google Drive without navigating the app.

The Calendly extension saves me a lot of time because it lists all my meetings links so that I can copy them easily – useful if I need to share it with someone quickly.

Deepcast allows me to easily translate text into the desired language directly from Raycast. The extension uses the API of DeepL and works very well.

The last extension I use a lot is Specify (of course, since it's my company —disclaimer). It allows me to quickly access the visual elements of my company (colors, logos, etc.). Really useful, whether you have a design system or not!

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Aliases, hotkeys, and fallback searches

System

  • Empty Trash: tra (Alias), ⌘⇧0 (Hotkey)
  • Lock Screen: lk (Alias)
  • Toggle System Appearance: sys (Alias), ⌘⇧1 (Hotkey)
  • Start Screen Saver: sa (Alias), ⌘⇧É (Hotkey)

Window management

  • Center: ⌘⇧C
  • Left Half: ⌥⇧←
  • Maximize: ⌘⇧↑
  • Next Display: ⌘⇧→
  • Previous Display: ⌘⇧←
  • Restore: ⌘⇧↓
  • Toggle Fullscreen: ⌘⇧F

Other

  • Clipboard History: ⌘⇧Space
  • File Search: fs (Alias), ⌥⇧Space (Hotkey)
  • Grammarly (Quicklink): gr (Alias)
  • Confetti: ⌘F5
  • Open Clipboard URL on Desktop (Script): url (Alias), ⌘⇧& (Hotkey)
  • Search Emoji: ⌘^Space
  • Share Meeting Link (Calendly): cy (Alias)

Anything else

Raycast is now integrated into my daily life and replaces so many applications that I couldn't do without it. It's now the first application I install when I initialize a new MacBook. Thank you for creating such a delightful experience; everything is perfect: the team, the product, and the community ❤️

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