Jumping Directly to an App with the Keyboard

One of my biggest annoyances when using a computer is switching between apps. When I want to go to my Gmail, I want to quickly jump to it, not use alt/command tab and cycle through my open windows or have to click on the icon in the taskbar or dock. The past two weeks I’ve made a conscious effort to use the keyboard and switch directly to the app I want, and it’s diminished my annoyance.

First things first, I have not figured out an easy way to do this on macOS. ChromeOS and Windows both have these keyboard shortcuts built in, but macOS doesn’t.

When you view the taskbar in ChromeOS or Windows, each app is numbered starting from the left.

Under Windows, to switch to an app, you hold down the {Windows} key and tap the number of the app. On ChromeOS it is the {Search} key. For example, Firefox is the third icon, so I can jump to it by pressing {Windows/Search} + 3. In case Firefox is not open, it will start.

I’ve started to pin my apps in a specific order, so I know that {Windows/Search}-4 will always open my email. Also, if you keep the {Windows/Search} key held down and repeatedly tap the number key, it will cycle through the open windows for that particular app. Not exactly perfect, but better than cycling through all of the open windows.