Links into apps

A link that opens the app rather than a browser tab, filled in from a link you copied, plus every System Settings pane by name.

Most apps have two names for the same thing: a web address anybody can copy, and their own scheme:// address that opens the app itself. A Slack channel is acme.slack.com/archives/C0123… in a browser and slack://channel?team=T…&id=C… in Slack. The second is the one you want on a menu bar: it goes straight into the app, rather than into a browser tab that hands it on and leaves itself open behind you.

GreatBar knows the shape of both for the apps below, so you never have to type an identifier. This page is the reference: for each app, where the link is, what GreatBar saves, and what it fills in for you.

The two ways in

Paste a link you copied. Add › A Link, paste, done. If the address belongs to an app on this Mac, a row appears saying Open in App, the editor shows what it will be Saved as, and you can turn the row off to keep the web address instead.

Choose the screen first. Add › Into an App lists the apps the catalogue knows, the ones installed here first and the rest under Not installed here. Inside an app: Open App (the app itself), A Link Copied in App for the apps whose links GreatBar can read, and the screens worth filling in by hand, each blank a named field rather than braces inside an address. What the fields build is shown under them as you type.

Either way the result is one shortcut, and the editor’s footnote tells you which of the two addresses was kept and why.

Slack

Slack wants two ids and nobody knows either. You never have to.

1. In Slack, right-click the channel, the person or the file you want.
2. Choose Copy link.
3. Paste it into GreatBar. What it opens is read from the link.

The channel or person id comes out of the copied link. The workspace does not: Slack’s own link names it by domain (acme.slack.com), and slack:// wants the T… id behind that domain. The first time, GreatBar offers to read Slack’s own list of your workspaces, once, from this Mac; after that a pasted Slack link fills itself in. A link copied from app.slack.com/client/T…/C… carries both ids already and needs nothing.

Typing is only worth it for Open a workspace, where the blank is the domain you know: acme.slack.com.

WhatsApp

A phone number is the one id people actually know, so this one can be typed outright.

To paste instead: type wa.me/ and the number with its country code, no + and no spaces (wa.me/905321234567), or paste a link WhatsApp shared from a chat’s info screen. api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=… works too, and a text= in it is carried across. The shortcut names itself WhatsApp +90532… unless you name it.

The second screen is the one worth knowing about: one icon that opens a chat with a sentence already in the field, waiting to be sent. “On my way”, to the same person, every day.

Figma

1. Open the file in Figma and click Share, at the top right.
2. Choose Copy link.
3. Paste it. The file’s key is read from it.

Saved as figma://file/{file key}. figma.com/design/…, /file/…, /board/…, /proto/… and /slides/… are all understood, and a node-id in the link is carried across, so a shortcut can open one frame of a file rather than the file.

Zoom

1. Open the meeting’s invitation, in Mail or Calendar.
2. Copy the Join link; it carries the passcode when there is one.
3. Paste it.

Saved as zoommtg://zoom.us/join?confno={meeting number}, with &pwd=… when the link had a passcode in it. Typing works as well: the screen asks for the meeting number on its own. A recurring meeting is a good icon; the shortcut names itself Zoom 89012345678 unless you name it.

Notion

1. Open the page in Notion and click Share, at the top right.
2. Choose Copy link.
3. Paste it.

Saved as notion://www.notion.so/{page}, query and all. Both notion.so and notion.site addresses are read.

Telegram

1. In Telegram, open the person’s or the channel’s info.
2. Copy the t.me link there, or note the @name.
3. Paste the link, or the name without its @.

Saved as tg://resolve?domain={username}. A private invite link (t.me/+abc…) is not a username and is left as a web address.

Spotify

1. In Spotify, right-click a playlist, an album or a song.
2. Choose Share › Copy link.
3. Paste it.

Saved in Spotify’s own shape, colons and all: spotify:playlist:{id}, spotify:album:{id}, and the same for a track, an artist, a show or an episode. A localised address (open.spotify.com/intl-tr/track/…) is understood. Two screens are offered by name as well, for a playlist and for an album.

Microsoft Teams

1. In Teams, open the chat’s or the channel’s own menu, the three dots.
2. Choose Copy link.
3. Paste it.

Saved as msteams:/l/…. Typing works for one screen: Chat with someone, msteams:/l/chat/0/0?users={email}, where the blank is an email address rather than an id.

Discord

1. In Discord, right-click the channel.
2. Choose Copy Link.
3. Paste it. The server and the channel are read from it.

Saved as discord://discord.com/channels/{server}/{channel}. Both ids only ever come out of a link, so pasting is the way in.

The apps whose blanks are names

Nothing to copy here: what these want is something you already know, so the screen just asks for it.

Apple Shortcuts

Into an App › Shortcuts › Run a shortcut takes the name of a Shortcut on this Mac and saves shortcuts://run-shortcut?name={name}. Clicking the icon runs it. The name has to match the Shortcut exactly; GreatBar escapes the spaces for you.

That is how a script reaches the menu bar. GreatBar is sandboxed and runs nothing itself, and a process it started would be sandboxed too. Shortcuts is not: it runs shell commands, AppleScript and every app’s own actions. So the pattern is write it in Shortcuts, put a link to it on the bar.

An assistant can do both halves, including writing the Shortcut and signing it for you to add. See MCP and assistants.

System Settings, pane by pane

Into an App › System Settings lists the panes by the names the sidebar uses, each arriving with a symbol of its own: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Network, Sound, Displays, Notifications, Focus, Privacy & Security, Battery, Keyboard, Trackpad, Appearance, Wallpaper, Lock Screen, Desktop & Dock, Menu Bar, Accessibility, Users & Groups, Login Items & Extensions, Software Update, Storage, Time Machine, Startup Disk, Screen Time, Spotlight, Printers & Scanners, Date & Time, Language & Region, Sharing, General, iCloud, Internet Accounts, Touch ID & Password, Wallet & Apple Pay, Game Center, AirDrop & Continuity, and Apple Intelligence & Siri.

They are saved as x-apple.systempreferences:{pane identifier}, and only the panes this version of macOS actually has are offered. A last entry takes a pane the list does not know, by what follows com.apple. in its identifier.

Three or four of these behind one Mac group is the shortcut most people keep: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Sound, one click from the menu bar instead of four.

An app that is not listed

The catalogue is a convenience, not a limit. Add › A Link takes any address at all, including a scheme nobody has told GreatBar about: ssh://, mailto:, x-apple.systempreferences:…, or whatever an app’s own documentation gives you. If macOS knows which app owns the scheme, clicking the icon opens that app; if nothing owns it, GreatBar says so rather than opening a browser tab.

Rules that would take over a host people mostly browse are left out on purpose. GitHub is the one that keeps asking: a github.com address stays a web page, because most of them are.