Every Day I Find a New Reason to Love the Mac, Episode 2: Quicksilver

When I first heard of Quicksilver, I asked myself, "Who would want something like that? It just seems to add one more level of complexity to the OS." Boy, was I wrong.

Quicksilver has been described as a "launcher on steroids" by many. Its website calls it "A unified, extensible interface for working with applications, contacts, music, and other data." The first definition is a little vague; the latter definition sounds like a PR pitch.

Quiksilver, if you give yourself a week or two to learn it, will save you several minutes of time here and there. I hardly ever search for files in Finder any more. Quicksilver doesn't scour the innards of files, so its indexing is much more resource efficient. As long as you know the names of your files, you're in good shape.

For example, with exactly 20 keystrokes, I copied a jpg image to my desktop from some directory buried on my hard drive. The entire process took me literally 2 seconds:

• I press Control + Space to bring up the Quicksilver window


• I type "ex41j". It only takes these 5 letter for Quicksilver to know exactly which file I want.


• I hit Tab.


• I type "copy to."


• I hit Tab again.


• I type "desk". Quicksilver knows I mean my desktop.


• I hit Enter.


• Bam file copied.