Using the bar
Open the bar, type, pick a result with the arrow keys and press ↵; ⌘K, ⇥ and esc cover almost everything else.
Open and close it
Tap Right ⌘ twice quickly, or press ⌥Space. The bar opens over whatever you're doing and takes the keyboard at once, so you can start typing before it has finished appearing. The app you were in stays in front behind it.
Press the same keys again to close it, or press esc with nothing typed. You can change both keys in Settings → General → Open Saiki; see Hotkeys and aliases.
It remembers your last search
Close the bar and open it again, and your last search is still there, with the text selected so typing replaces it. Press esc to clear it. To start fresh after a while, set Settings → General → Open Saiki → Clear the last search after to 1, 5 or 15 minutes (it starts at Never).
Find and run things
Type a few letters. Results appear as you type: apps, Saiki's own commands, files, browser tabs, settings and answers, with what you open most ranked first. See How search works.
- ↑ ↓ move the selection (⌃P and ⌃N work too).
- ↵ does the main action for the selected result: open the app, switch to the tab, copy the answer. The footer always says what it is.
- Other actions have shortcuts of their own, listed in ⌘K. They work straight from the results, without opening the menu.
The footer
Small glass pills float at the bottom of the bar. The left one shows what's playing on your Mac (see Now Playing), or Saiki's mark. The right one names what ↵ does and has Actions ⌘K beside it. Every label is also a button: clicking it does the same as its key.
Bring back an older search
With the field empty, press ↑ to bring back what you searched before. Keep pressing ↑ to go further back; ↓ goes into the results.
See why a result is there
Hold ⌥ in the bar. Every row says why it's listed: which part of its name matched, your alias, the search you picked it for before, how often you've opened it and when. Let go to hide it again.
Actions ⌘K
Press ⌘K to see everything you can do with the selected result. The Actions pill grows into a menu.
- Type to filter the actions. ↑ ↓ move, ↵ runs one.
- Items with more inside (like Open With… or Configure Command) open with → or ↵; ← goes back out.
- Shortcuts are shown beside each action, and they work without opening the menu.
- Actions that remove, close or stop something are red and sit at the end.
- esc or ⌘K closes the menu.
On apps, Saiki's commands, window commands and settings, Configure Command lets you set a hotkey or an alias, hide the row, or reset its ranking. See Hotkeys and aliases.
Scopes ⇥
Some words open a focused search when you press ⇥ after them. The field then shows a token with the scope's icon and name, and you search only inside it.
| Type, then ⇥ | What opens |
|---|---|
files | The Files view |
apps or applications | Every app as a grid (Applications) |
tabs or tab | Your open Chrome tabs |
search, web or ? | Web search with suggestions |
A site's keyword, like youtube | A search on that site (Web and site search) |
menu | The menu commands of the app you were in (Menu items) |
emoji or symbols | The Emoji & Symbols grid |
agents | The Agents hub |
ai, claude or gpt | A chat with your default AI, Claude or ChatGPT (Asking and chatting) |
The right end of the search field tells you what ⇥ will do before you press it. On a highlighted folder, ⇥ opens it inside the bar. When ⇥ has nothing else to do, it asks your default AI about what you typed; turn that off with Settings → AI & Agents → ⇥ asks AI.
An alias you set also works with ⇥: type it and press ⇥ to run its row.
To leave a scope, press ⌫ in an empty field, or esc. In an AI chat only esc leaves, so a stray ⌫ never closes it.
Getting back with esc
esc always takes one step back, in this order:
- Closes an open menu or card.
- Leaves the scope or view you're in. (In an AI chat it clears what you typed first.)
- Clears what you typed.
- Closes the bar.
Work with several files
On file results, hold ⇧ and press ↑ or ↓ (or ⌘-click) to pick more than one. The picked files sit above the results; ↵ asks AI about them, and esc lets them go. You can also drop files from Finder onto the bar: they become chips in the field to ask AI about. With File Converter on, the drop card has two halves: drop on the left to ask AI, or on the right to convert the files.
Settings from the bar
Press ⌘, anywhere in the bar to open Settings. Settings also show up in search: type part of a setting's name, like glass or menu bar, and ↵ on Change Setting takes you straight to it.