Mac Productivity Tools — Raycast · Rectangle · AltTab · Maccy · Karabiner

Most of your time on a Mac is spent on window switching + search + clipboard + key remapping. Default macOS bundles these adequately, but to drive everything from the keyboard you need this five-tool stack. After internalizing it, you'll barely touch the mouse.

This guide targets macOS 14+ and takes 30–60 minutes after Mac initial setup. Half is installation, half is the shortcuts and patterns you'll actually use daily.

TL;DR

Prerequisites

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later — some casks break on 12 or below
• Homebrew installed — Mac initial setup
• Administrator rights (can sudo)

Automation Script (optional)

To install all five casks in one shot — always download → verify SHA-256 → review → run:

# 1. Download
curl -fsSL https://devalice.jaceclub.com/assets/mac/productivity/setup-mac-productivity.sh -o setup-mac-productivity.sh
 
# 2. Verify SHA-256
shasum -a 256 setup-mac-productivity.sh
# Expected: 2a0e3cfd652afa6ecf95a35b315ff584a77a3bdb753cfad8eb978a023ab3a8d6
 
# 3. Review
less setup-mac-productivity.sh
 
# 4. Run
bash setup-mac-productivity.sh

The script is idempotent — already-installed casks are skipped. Manual steps (permissions, hotkey config) are covered below.

1. Raycast — 5 min

Everything Spotlight does, faster, plus clipboard / calculator / translation / a real extension marketplace. The single biggest-impact tool.

Install

brew install --cask raycast

Initial Setup

1. Launch — open Spotlight (⌘ Space), type "raycast", press Enter
2. Hotkey — Raycast Preferences → General → set Raycast Hotkey to ⌥ Space (avoid Spotlight conflict). Disable Spotlight:
   • System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Spotlight → uncheck "Show Spotlight search"
3. Indexing — Raycast auto-indexes apps and system commands. No extra config.

Daily Commands

Extensions (Store)

Open the marketplace with the Store command. Recommended:

• Color Picker — pick hex from any pixel
• Kill Process — terminate by pid/name
• Search npm — instant npm package lookup
• GitHub — search repos/issues/PRs
• Brew — brew install/list/upgrade

Free tier is plenty. Pro (monthly) adds AI/sync. Start free.

2. Rectangle — 5 min

Window manager. Halves, quadrants, fullscreen, move-to-next-monitor — all one shortcut.

Install + Permissions

brew install --cask rectangle

1. Launch — open via Launchpad or Raycast
2. Grant Accessibility:
   • System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility → toggle Rectangle ON
   • Without it, shortcuts don't fire

Default Daily Shortcuts

If the defaults don't fit your hands, remap them in Preferences → Keyboard Shortcuts. Magnet-style bindings can be applied in one click.

Real Patterns

• Editor + Terminal — ⌃⌥ ← editor / ⌃⌥ → terminal. 5-second setup
• Editor + Browser + Slack — ⌃⌥ U / I / J quadrants
• Cross-monitor — laptop + external: ⌃⌥ Cmd → snaps to the external as fullscreen

3. AltTab — 5 min

macOS's default ⌘ Tab switches by app, which is frustrating when one app has many windows. AltTab switches by window with thumbnails — Windows/Linux-friendly.

Install + Permissions

brew install --cask alt-tab

1. Launch → grant Accessibility (same path as Rectangle)
2. Preferences → Shortcuts → keep ⌥ Tab (default)

Daily Shortcuts

Recommended Options

• Preferences → Appearance → Theme: macOS (native look)
• Preferences → Controls → "Also select windows" : ✅ (mouse hover selects)
• Preferences → Blacklist → exclude video-call apps (Zoom etc.) to reduce mini-window noise

Excellent for jumping between same-app instances (e.g., three VS Code windows) — more intuitive than `⌘ `` (backtick) and consistent across apps.

4. Maccy — 3 min

Clipboard history. macOS remembers only the last item; Maccy keeps the last N items in a searchable list.

Install + Permissions

brew install --cask maccy

1. Launch → Accessibility permission
2. Preferences → General:
   • Hotkey: ⇧⌘ C (default). If Raycast's clipboard extension conflicts, disable one
   • Size: 200 (200 items is plenty; too large = slow search)
3. Preferences → Storage → "Save history" ✅

Daily Shortcuts

Real Patterns

• Successive tokens — copy token A, copy token B, recall A from Maccy
• Reuse previous search terms — apply the same regex across many files
• Exclude secrets — Preferences → Ignore → regex for password-manager output (or ignore-by-app)

⚠️ After handling secrets (API keys, passwords), ⌘ K immediately. Maccy stores locally, but it does persist on disk.

5. Karabiner-Elements — 10 min

Key remapping. Most common uses:

• Caps Lock → Control — less strain on the left pinky (essential for Vim/Emacs users)
• Single Cmd tap → IME toggle — Korean users
• External keyboard remapping — HHKB/Keychron modifier alignment

Install + Permissions

brew install --cask karabiner-elements

1. Launch and grant Input Monitoring permission
2. Install Driver — first launch prompts a system extension; approve in System Settings → Privacy & Security ("Allow" near the bottom)
3. May need re-login or reboot

Caps Lock → Ctrl (the classic)

1. Karabiner-Elements → Simple Modifications
2. Left key = caps_lock, right key = left_control
3. Save (applies immediately)

Single Cmd → IME Toggle (Complex Modifications)

1. Karabiner-Elements → Complex Modifications → Add rule → Import more rules
2. Search "right command to eisuu/kana" or "korean toggle"
3. Import → Enable
4. Left-Cmd single tap = English, right-Cmd single tap = Korean (combo keys still act as Cmd)

Karabiner's Complex Modifications are JSON rules. Direct authoring is possible, but start with imports from karabiner-elements/complex_modifications.

Verification — the "Five-Minute No-Mouse" Challenge

Setup successful if you can run these five tasks mouse-free:

1. ⌥ Space Raycast → chrome → Enter
2. ⌃⌥ ← moves Chrome to the left half
3. ⌥ Space → term → open Terminal
4. ⌃⌥ → Terminal to the right half
5. In Terminal: echo hello world → copy result → ⇧⌘ C Maccy → confirm the previous copy is there

If this finishes in under five seconds without getting stuck, you're good.

Troubleshooting

Rectangle shortcuts do nothing

99% of the time: Accessibility permission missing. System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility → toggle Rectangle ON. If grayed out, click + and add Rectangle.app.

AltTab misses windows in some apps

Those apps aren't recognized as "separate windows" by Mission Control. AltTab Preferences → Controls → toggle "Show standard tabs as windows" or similar. If not, that's an app-side limitation.

External keyboard doesn't respond after Karabiner

System extension approval missed. System Settings → Privacy & Security → "Allow" at the bottom. macOS shows this prompt for only ~30 minutes; if missed, retry.

Raycast feels slow

Too many extensions. Preferences → Extensions → disable unused ones. Trim indexing options.

Maccy remembered a secret

Preferences → Ignore → add the password-manager app / regex. Already-captured items: ⌘ K to wipe.

Raycast hotkey clashes with another app

Usually because Spotlight wasn't disabled. System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Spotlight → uncheck "Show Spotlight search".

References

• Mac initial setup — Homebrew/Git/SSH come first
• Raycast / Rectangle / AltTab / Maccy / Karabiner-Elements
• karabiner-elements/complex_modifications — rule marketplace

Changelog

• 2026-05-12: First draft. Five tools + automation script + "five-minute challenge" verification + six troubleshooting cases.