How to Easily Control Your Mac with Flashlight

For those who are not already aware, Spotlight is the overarching search bar for your Mac. Spotlight is capable of accomplishing tons of different tasks on your Mac - from launching applications to looking up documents to performing basic calculations. If you want more info on Spotlight, read our post about it. With Flashlight, a free utility developed by Nate Parrott, Spotlight has never been more powerful. Flashlight acts like a plugin for Spotlight, allowing you execute over 160 different tasks simply by typing commands into Spotlight. If you consider yourself to be a Mac power user, Flashlight is a must-have utility.

How To Get Flashlight

Flashlight recently came out of beta and is available as a free download here. In order to use Flashlight, you must be on OS X Yosemite. Once you install Flashlight, you will be prompted to enable Spotlight plugins for your Mac. Flashlight runs parallel with Spotlight, but you can also open the Flashlight application, which is essentially a store where you can install hundreds of different plugins that all accomplish different tasks.

Flashlight Plugin Store

Since Flashlight is opensource software, other developers will create additional plugins for the app meaning that Flashlight's capabilities will grow over time.

What Can Flashlight Do?

We will not get into every task that Flashlight can accomplish, but here are some functions that come pre-installed with Flashlight:

Shutdown

You can execute the following Mac functions by simply typing these commands into Spotlight:

"shutdown"
"restart"
"logout"
"sleep"
"lock"

Weather

You can easily check the weather through Flashlight by typing commands like this into Spotlight:

"weather Seattle"
"How's the weather in Cuppertino?"

Calendar Events & Reminders

Easily create calendar events and reminders through Flashlight by using these commands:

"add an event "club meeting" at 6pm tomorrow"
"calendar event: business trip, 4/15 - 4/18"
"On 4/16 I need to pay my taxes"

Phone & FaceTime Calls

If you have FaceTime enabled on your Mac, you can easily make calls with Flashlight by using these commands:

"call 4252000071"
"FaceTime Lindsay"
"Call Dad's work phone"

Quick Web Searches

Show search results right within Spotify using Flashlight and the following commands (search will use your default searche engine):

"/td curran"
"/seattle spaceneedle
"images of the Apple Watch"

There are tons of other functions that Flashlight can handle. To check out some of the other plugins you can enable for Flashlight, simply open the app and use the sidebar to peruse through plugins for different categories. There is also a "Featured" and "New" section within the Flashlight app that will highlight recent and popular plugins.

Who Benefits Most From Flashlight?

While Flashlight is definitely not for everyone, users who regularly use Spotlight as a way to control their Mac will love the additional functions and tasks accomplished via Flashlight. Old-school computer users who like the command-line style of computing will also like Flashlight, as it is essentially a command-line program.