Menu bar search

Type menu and start typing, or pick Search Menu Items. Cleat reads the menu bar of the app you came from and lists every item, with its keyboard shortcut where one exists. Return runs it.

This is the fastest way to reach a command you use twice a year and cannot find, and a way to give a shortcut to one that has none: select the item, press ⌘ K, choose Assign Hotkey.

Menu reading goes through Accessibility, so it needs that permission. Items that are disabled in the app are shown greyed and cannot be run.

Why it is useful

Two problems it solves. The first is the command you know exists but cannot find: every app buries something under a submenu three levels down, and searching by name is faster than hunting. The second is the command with no shortcut at all. Select it, press ⌘K, choose Assign Hotkey, and it has one from then on.

What it can and cannot run

Cleat lists every item in the front app’s menu bar, including submenus, with the keyboard shortcut where one exists. Items the app has disabled are shown greyed and cannot be run, because the app itself has turned them off.

Menus are read through the Accessibility API, so the permission is the same one window snapping uses. Nothing is stored: the list is built when you open it and thrown away when you close it.

A note on Electron apps

Apps that draw their own menus rather than using the system menu bar expose less to Accessibility. Most Electron apps still register a real menu bar and work fine. A few draw everything in the web view, and for those Cleat finds only the top level items.