Quicklinks

A quicklink is a saved destination that behaves like any other launcher entry. You can search for it, give it a shortcut, and have it ask for a value, like a search term.

Settings → Quicklinks holds the switch. It ships off.

While the feature is off there is no Quicklinks section, no quicklink commands, and nothing opens. Your shortcuts stay recorded, so turning it back on brings every one of them back.

Making one

Add Quicklink in Settings, or the Create Quicklink command, opens the editor.

The Insert… menu adds placeholders for you.

Destinations

Tinycast works out what a link is from how it looks:

Two shapes are read the way you almost certainly meant them: a single letter before a colon is a Windows drive letter, and a name followed by a colon and only digits is a host and port.

Placeholders

Quicklinks use the same placeholders as snippets:

https://google.com/search?q={argument}
https://github.com/search?q={argument name="Repository"}
https://translate.google.com/?text={selection}
https://chat.openai.com/?q={clipboard}
~/Notes/{date format="yyyy-MM-dd"}.md

{cursor} and {snippet:…} stay as written in a link, because there is no cursor to place in a URL. Raycast's {query} is accepted as {argument}.

Encoding

Values going into a web link or deeplink are encoded automatically, so a search term with a space or an & cannot break the link. A file path is never encoded, so %20 in a path stays %20.

| raw turns encoding off. It also lets the value decide what kind of link this is: a {clipboard | raw} holding file:///Users/me/notes.md opens a file, not a web page. That is powerful and sometimes surprising, which is why you have to ask for it.

Filling in values

A quicklink that needs values shows small fields right in the search bar, after what you typed, while its row is selected. The row stays in view the whole time.

• tab moves from the search field through each field and back.
• return opens the quicklink. If a required field is empty, it jumps there instead.
• A field with options= opens a menu to pick from.
• esc moves you from a field back to the search field.

A field only turns red after you have visited it and left it empty. A field you have not touched yet is not something you owe.

Values like {clipboard}, {selection} and {date} are read at the moment the link opens. Opened with a shortcut while the palette is closed, {selection} reads from the app you were actually using.

A shortcut for a quicklink that still needs values opens Search Quicklinks on that quicklink, with its first empty field ready to type in.

When there is no selection

If a link uses {selection}, When there's no selected text decides what happens:

• Ask for it (default): a Selected Text field appears. Leave it empty and a real selection is still used; type something and it replaces it.
• Use the clipboard: the clipboard stands in for the selection.

As a fallback

A quicklink with an {argument} also shows under "Use … with" at the bottom of every search. What you typed fills its first argument. See Fallbacks.

Opening

Open With remembers a specific app. If that app is later uninstalled, you get a clear message with an Open with Default button, not a silent switch to another app.

Open in a new window asks the browser for a new window. Chrome and Firefox listen; Safari ignores it. With it off, the link opens the way macOS normally does, which usually reuses a tab.

A file or folder link is checked first, so a deleted folder tells you it is gone.

Search Quicklinks

Quicklinks get their own launcher section. Only the name is searchable, plus any alias you give it. The link itself is not.

Pinned quicklinks come first, in the order you pinned them, then the rest by name. Pinned means the top of the Quicklinks section, not above your apps.

The Search Quicklinks command opens a screen with the list on the left and details on the right: the link, the app it opens with, its shortcut and when you made it.

Open With Default App only appears when the quicklink has its own app, and Show in Finder only for files and folders.

Three ways to put one away

From widest to narrowest:

1. Show in launcher in Settings takes every quicklink and the quicklink commands out of search.
2. The Enabled checkbox on a quicklink's row in Settings makes that one quicklink do nothing, while keeping its shortcut and settings.
3. Show in root search off keeps a quicklink out of the main search, but you can still open it from Search Quicklinks or its shortcut.

Editing a quicklink keeps its shortcut, favorite, visibility and learned ranking. Duplicating makes a new quicklink, so the copy does not take the original's shortcut.

Import and export

Import Quicklinks and Export Quicklinks use a simple JSON file you can edit by hand. A bare list works too, and only name and link are required.

{
  "version": 1,
  "quicklinks": [
    {
      "name": "GitHub search",
      "link": "https://github.com/search?q={argument name=\"Query\"}"
    }
  ]
}

A quicklink is skipped as a duplicate if its name or its link matches one you already have, or one earlier in the same file. The summary tells you how many were skipped.

You can also bring quicklinks across from a Raycast export.

Where they are kept

Quicklinks live in quicklinks.sqlite3 in Tinycast's Application Support folder. If that file ever cannot be opened, Tinycast reports it and never deletes it. Your links are something you made, not something that can be rebuilt.