flash

Flash and Shortcat

Shortcat is “The universal command palette for your Mac”: type what you see, fuzzy-matched over the Accessibility tree, and labels appear after a configurable delay. It is closed source by chendo, free while in beta (the expiry was pushed to 2030 in v0.12.1), needs macOS 13+, and had one release in 2025 (v0.12.2, July) after a two-year gap.

	Shortcat	Flash
License, price	Closed; free beta	MIT, free
Platforms	macOS 13+	macOS 14+
Permissions	Accessibility	Accessibility; Automation per browser for tab lists; Screen Recording only for `:screenshot`
Hints from	Accessibility tree, search first	Accessibility tree, labels first, search as an option
Pointer modes	Search, labels after a delay, click/right/double/modifier click, continuous mode (alpha), arrows and scrolling (alpha)	Hints, search, grid, bisect, pointer mode, drag, select, words, path, sticky, multi
Beyond pointing	Menu-command search, window switching, emoji with `:`	NORMAL mode, flashlight, status bar, widgets, popups, window placement, plugins
Configuration	Settings window	One TOML file, live reload, CLI
Maintenance	v0.12.2, July 2025; sparse	1.0.0, October 2026

Where Shortcat is stronger

Search as the primary interaction. One palette finds buttons, menu items, windows (including minimized ones) and emoji. For people who would rather type a word than read labels, it is the more direct tool.
Minimized and background windows are reachable from the same palette.
Zero configuration and a lower macOS floor.

Where Flash is stronger

Labels first, search second. Flash shows labels immediately; --search types visible text. Shortcat shows labels only after a delay (two seconds by default). A 2023 HN comment put it as “It takes a full second with Shortcat”; Flash’s cold activations measure 9 to 26 ms on an M4 Pro (performance).
Open source, actively released, documented privacy. Shortcat users complained in 2022 that diagnostics collection had no opt-out.
A file, a CLI and a modal layer. Shortcat has no file, CLI, API or per-app configuration documented.
Grid, pointer mode, drag and selection for what search cannot reach.
Everything after the click (bar, widgets, popups, plugins).

Flash features you might like

:flashlight @menus print runs the frontmost app’s menu items by search, and @windows focuses a window by title (flashlight).
:flashlight @emojis.glyphs fire replaces the : emoji search.
mouse_target --search is the seek-and-click, mouse_bigram types one visible character then a short label.
--multi keeps hints up for several clicks, the continuous mode Shortcat marks alpha.

Moving from Shortcat

Shortcat	Flash
Palette hotkey	`["flash", "mouse_target", "--search"]`
Labels	`["flash", "mouse_target"]`
Menu commands	`["flash", "enter_command_mode", "--input=:flashlight @menus "]`
Window switching	`["flash", "enter_command_mode", "--input=:flashlight @windows "]`
Emoji `:`	`:flashlight @emojis.glyphs <name>`
Continuous mode	`mouse_target --multi`
Scrolling (alpha)	NORMAL mode scroll keys

[mode.all.mappings]
"cmd+shift+space" = ["flash", "mouse_target", "--search"]
"cmd+ctrl+alt+space" = ["flash", "enter_command_mode", "--input=:flashlight "]

Checked 2026-10-14 against shortcat.app, its docs and changelog.

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