My top 10 Raycast Extensions
Raycast is an extendable launcher for macOS and has been my daily driver for a while now. It managed to replace Alfred, which was my go-to app launcher for Mac for a long time. On the surface, both applications appear to solve the same problem and both provide a fast and convenient way to launch your applications, however, one of Raycast’s core functionalities is that it can be extended through the use of extensions. These extensions are built by the users and solve a wide range of issues.
Because I have come to love and rely on Raycast so much, I wanted to share with you all some of my favourite extensions. They are not ranked in any way and this is not the full list of extensions that I have installed. I wanted to try and keep the list down to mostly stand-alone extensions that require no additional software but some of those have crept in. Where you are required to install additional software I have made sure to highlight them on the list.
As always, here is the complete list which you can use to jump straight to that particular extension.
Bitwarden - App Required
Bitwarden is an open-source password manager that I have been using for the last few years. It was one of the very few password managers that met my requirements. Those being, it is free, cross-platform and it doesn’t limit the number of devices or passwords you can store.
The Raycast extension enables you to quickly access your passwords, credit card info and usernames from within the search menu saving you from having to open up the app and navigate away from where you want to be. Another great thing about the extension is the ability to generate passwords on the fly.
Brew - Homebrew Required
Homebrew is a package manager that enables you to install a vast array of applications straight from the Terminal. What I love about this is that you don’t have to go searching for a download to install the software and it makes it very easy to update or uninstall your applications.
One issue I do have with Homebrew is that you never know if there is a package for the software you want to install unless you have installed it before. The Raycast extension solves this. With the extension, you can search for available packages, install them, check to see which of your packages are out of date and uninstall any you don't want anymore.
Change Case is a simple utility that will take your copied text and format it to your liking. Be that camelCase, snake_case, CONSTANT_CASE or pretty much any other type of casing. In fact, I had no idea how many types of casing there were but this app seems to have them all.
ColorSlurp - Base App Required
ColorSlurp is a nifty little utility that enables you to sample colours from your screen and copy the values to your clipboard, be that in RGB format, HEX, HSL or one of many other options.
I have tried a couple of different colour pickers for Mac but none of them quite fit the bill until I found ColorSlurp. Its ability to tie in with Raycast is also the cherry on top and makes it super simple to grab a colour on the go.
Does exactly what it says on the tin. Choose a process from the kill list and ‘Kill Process’ will quit that application/process. Very similar to macOS’ Force Quit dialogue but with the ability to search for a specific process.
If you do any design work or create content where you often need filler text to block out a design, Lorem Ipsum is the perfect fit for you. Using the Raycast extension you can quickly grab a chunk of text, either a sentence or a whole paragraph and use it to fill out your templates.
A nifty little tool to open a file with a specific application. I find it a little faster than bringing up the “Right Click” menu and I also like that I have the ability to search for the application I want to launch.
I have tied this feature to the keyboard shortcut ⌘ + O for faster and more convenient access.
Again, if you do any development or graphics, having access to fonts is always worthwhile. The Google fonts extension enables you to quickly, browse, search and download any of the Google Fonts from https://fonts.google.com - they are all free and available to use by anyone.
Toolbox is a collection of scripts that can process data. Whether that is formatting JSON files, converting colour codes or interpreting hours and minutes into seconds. It can run these processes with the text copied to your clipboard or from files copied to your clipboard.
Unsplash is a website dedicated to proprietary stock photography. It has a huge collection of royalty-free imagery that anyone can use for any purpose. Again, if you have a website or create content for the web having a vast array of images at your disposal is a huge benefit.
The Raycast extension enables easy access to this huge database of images and allows you quickly search and download the exact image you need.
Wrap up
Raycast has been one of my favourite additions to my Mac over the past year and extensions add such a diverse range of capabilities to the platform. I can’t wait to see what else the community adds in the future and where the application goes from here.
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If you have any favourite extensions, why not stick them in the comments and share them with us.