REVIEW · LAUNCHER
Verdict: Yes, if you like building your own keyboard shortcuts into everything: Quicksilver is free forever, open source, actively maintained, and its actions, plugins and triggers go deep. It opens files you can name in a few keystrokes; it is a launcher and action tool, not a document search engine.
5 November 2026 · By Ishtiaque Hossain · 4 minute read
Looking for a file you can describe but not name? Try Shlexball. The first 30 searches are free and need no account.
macOS 15 or later. Apple silicon. 16 GB memory. On a phone? Email yourself the link.
This review is based on Quicksilver's own pages, read on 14 October 2026. Every claim links to the page it came from. We are the makers of Shlexball, so we say plainly where Quicksilver does better.
| Price | Free forever; open source |
| What it does | Launch apps, open files, access bookmarks and act on files from the keyboard |
| Extend it | Hundreds of plugins for mail, browsers, calendar, clipboard, images and more |
| Install | Direct download or Homebrew |
| Maintained by | A community of developers |
| Best for | Keyboard users who want to automate actions on apps and files |
Quicksilver describes itself as a fast macOS productivity application that lets you control your Mac quickly and elegantly. Its motto is act without doing.
From the keyboard you start applications, open files and access bookmarks with a few keystrokes, then do something with them, which is what sets Quicksilver apart from a plain launcher.
Its manual calls it a powerful interface for your Mac that lets you perform countless actions entirely with the keyboard.
Actions are the heart of it. You can move, copy, email or compress files, send messages and control music playback, all without reaching for the mouse.
Hundreds of plugins extend it to other apps: send email through Apple Mail or Gmail, search Safari, Chrome and Firefox bookmarks and history, create calendar events and reminders, keep a clipboard history and a shelf for items, insert emojis, and resize, crop or convert images.
Triggers let you assign a keyboard shortcut or a mouse gesture to any action, so a task you repeat daily becomes a single keystroke.
A built-in calculator copies results to the clipboard.
The pattern is always the same: summon Quicksilver, type a few letters to pick an item such as a file, then choose what to do with it, for example email it, compress it or move it to another folder.
Once you repeat a task often, assign it a trigger, a keyboard shortcut or mouse gesture, and the whole sequence runs instantly next time.
Plugins widen what the first and last steps can be: a contact to message, a browser bookmark to open, an image to resize, or an event to add to your calendar.
Quicksilver learns your habits and adapts, showing the items you need when you need them. In practice that means the apps and files you use most rise to the top as you type.
You can also make it look the way you like: there are more than 10 interfaces, including Bezel, Flash, Yosemite and Primer, with colour themes built in.
Quicksilver is open source and free forever, and its site says it is actively maintained by a community of developers. You can download it directly or install it with Homebrew.
The user manual is organized for both new and experienced users: an introduction to the concepts and terms, the preferences in detail, and a large section on plugins grouped by topic, such as files, contacts, email and web browsers.
Because Quicksilver integrates with so many parts of macOS, the manual suggests new users skim the preferences and read only the sections that interest them.
Quicksilver is quick at opening a file whose name you can start typing, and its learning makes frequent files even faster to reach.
Its pages present it as a launcher and an action tool. They do not describe searching the text inside documents, so for a file you only remember by its subject you will need another tool.
It suits people who enjoy shaping their tools: building triggers, adding plugins and chaining actions until common chores take one keystroke.
Since it costs nothing, the easiest way to decide is to install it, read the introduction in the manual, and try a few actions on your own files.
Quicksilver needs the first letters of a name. Shlexball finds a file from a plain-English description of what you remember, searching file and folder names and the text inside files, including PDFs and Word documents.
Shlexball also finds apps and System Settings panes, runs its language model on your Mac, and is read-only. The first 30 searches are free.
For files you can't name, Shlexball searches by meaning: 30 free searches.
▶ DOWNLOAD SHLEXBALLYes. Quicksilver's site says it is actively maintained by a community of developers, and it remains open source and free forever.
Yes. It is open source and free forever.
Open files from the keyboard, and move, copy, email or compress them with actions. Plugins add more, such as image resizing and conversion.
Download it from the Quicksilver website or install it with Homebrew.
Its site presents Quicksilver as a way to launch apps, open files and act on them; it does not describe searching the text inside documents.