Raycast, which is free for individual users, is my favoriteSpotlight replacement.

key in a few characters to do just about anything.

you could also search for files or toggle various system prefs.

The Raycast window is shown here searching through all of my beer recipes, which are stored in OneNote

That functionality alone would make Raycast worth installing.

The truly great thing about Raycast, however, is the plugins.

Just punch in “Store,” hit “Enter,” and you might browse the collection.

The Bitwarden extension can search your vault. It can also generate random passwords.

Failing that, you canbrowse the Raycast store online.

Here are the most useful sorts of plugins I’ve found.

Search your notes

I brew beer and mostly store my recipes in OneNote.

I’m searching for “Beaches” in a Raycast window. The album “Blame my Ex” is selected.

I’m also a big Obsidian usermy personal journal and work life both live there.

Raycast makes it easy to search these and other note-taking applications.

There are extensions forApple Notes,OneNote,Obsidian, and evenBear.

I’m reading the Wikipedia article for Lifehacker in a Raycast window.

All of these allow you to search your notes right in Raycast and preview them right there.

If you want to initiate the note, no problem: Just hit enter.

It is so great being able to quickly find and pull up such information.

Raycast here shows a list of the currently mounted hard drives

Just initiate the plugin, jot down the password you’re looking for, and hit enter.

it’s possible for you to take this even further and quickly grab two-factor authentication codes.

Both work really well.

Control music

I usually know which album I want to listen to next.

The Raycast extension forSpotifyallows me to quickly bang out the name of an album and play it.

It also works for playlists, artists, and songs.

I love being able to quickly start any music without having to fuss around in the Spotify user interface.

There’s a similar extension forApple Music, if that’s your go-to player.

Read Wikipedia

Wikipedia is an excellent starting point for researching basically anything.

you could also pop swing open the article in your default web app by hitting enter.

It’s annoyingly slow.

The extensionSingle Disk Ejectshows you all currently connected external drives and allows you to disconnect by hitting Enter.

The extensionCoffeeoffers this without the need to install an app.

So much more

I could go on for a long time.

MyIPshows you your current IP address.

Speedtestlets you quickly test your internet connection speed.

Shellallows you to run any Terminal command without actually opening the Terminal.

This is just a start: There are so many more tools.

I recommendchecking out the storeto get a better idea of what it’s possible for you to do.