A search bar and hotkeys for any app on your computer

Every app has its own search box, and none of them look inside the others. Barside adds one that works everywhere: a search bar and hotkeys for any app on your computer. Press Alt+Shift+Space wherever you are, and the screen dims behind a single box. Type a few letters, and it finds your notes, tasks, bookmarks, meetings, calendar events, drawings, videos and every Barside command. Short aliases run commands in a few keystrokes, so task buy milk adds a task without opening anything. Press Tab, and the AI you connected answers right in the bar.

The search bar is free, and the search itself runs on your computer, with no account and no internet needed.

How to open the search bar

• From any app: press Alt+Shift+Space, the default hotkey. You can change it.
• Inside Barside: press Ctrl+K.
• On the desktop bar: click Search Barside. See how to dock the desktop bar to a screen edge.
• From the tray: choose Search & commands.

Before you type, the bar shows what you are likely to want. Favorites come first. If you opened it from a note, This note offers that note's own commands: record into it, prepare a follow-up, save it as a template, or pin it to the desktop. Then come five questions you can ask AI, the Quick actions (New note, New task, New recording, New meeting, Capture screen text, and Hotkeys and aliases) and your five most recent notes.

The keys are listed at the bottom of the bar: ↑ and ↓ move, Enter opens, Tab asks AI, and Ctrl+D stars a favorite. Esc steps back: it stops Quick AI while it works, returns to search, clears what you typed, and then closes the bar.

What the search bar and hotkeys for any app can find

Type, and the results arrive in groups.

Search matches every word you type, in any order, so launch copy finds a note that contains both words. A word at the start of a title counts most, and a title match ranks above a match in the text. Calendar events come from the calendars you connect, and tasks come from every checklist in your notes.

Aliases: commands in a few keystrokes

An alias is a short word you type in the bar to run a command. Type it exactly, and its command jumps to the top; press Enter. Four commands also take words after their alias: nn Trip ideas makes a note with that title, task buy milk adds a task and says "Task added: buy milk", save followed by a link saves the page to Reading, and ai followed by a question asks Quick AI.

You can add your own aliases, up to 8 for each command, and remove the ones you never use.

Hotkeys that work in every app

A hotkey runs a command from any app, even while Barside is hidden in the tray. These are the defaults:

Inside Barside, Ctrl+K opens the search bar, Ctrl+N makes a note and Ctrl+F searches your space. Any of Barside's 51 commands, in the groups Barside, Create, Ask, Open and Modes, can have a hotkey of its own.

Set your own hotkey or alias

1. Open Settings → Hotkeys and aliases and click Change. You can also type keys in the search bar, or click the keyboard button on the desktop bar. Point at that button to see your hotkeys and aliases without opening anything.
2. Find the command with Find a command, hotkey or alias….
3. Click the command's hotkey and press the new keys. Esc cancels. While you press, Barside pauses its own hotkeys, so none of them fire.
4. To add an alias, type it in Add alias next to the command and press Enter.
5. Remove a hotkey or an alias with its X. The round arrow (Back to the default) puts one hotkey back, and Reset all, after you confirm, returns every hotkey and alias to the defaults.

Barside checks each hotkey so it cannot break another app:

• It needs Ctrl, Alt or the Windows key (Super on Linux) together with the key, so typing still works, and Barside for Mac asks for Control, Option or Command. An F key can be used alone.
• Ctrl with one key is refused, because other apps use those for copy, paste and save.
• Keys your system keeps are refused, like Alt+Tab, Alt+F4, Win+L and Win+D on Windows, Ctrl+Alt+T and the Super arrow keys on Linux, or, in Barside for Mac, macOS's own keys for switching apps, Spotlight and screenshots.
• A hotkey belongs to one command. Barside tells you which command already has it.
• If another app holds a hotkey, Barside says it "is used by another app, so it does not work now", and you can choose another.
• An alias is 1 to 24 letters, digits or dashes, with no spaces, and two commands cannot share one.

Quick AI: ask without leaving the bar

Type a question and press Tab, or click Quick AI. The assistant answers right in the bar. It uses the AI you connect in Settings → AI: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or OpenRouter. Barside has no AI of its own, so without a connection, it tells you how to connect one.

Quick AI can also act for you, for example add a task, set a reminder or save a page to Reading, and you see each step as it runs. Before it changes anything in another app, or opens a web page, it asks first, with Allow and Don't allow. When it is done, ask a follow-up, or choose Copy answer, Save as note or Open the assistant to carry on in the full AI assistant. The suggestions when the bar opens are a good start: "What tasks are due today?" or "Plan my day from my tasks and calendar."

For questions about everything you have saved, with sources, use AI search over your notes, which has its own command: type ask.

Favorites, sums and other small things

• Favorites. Star a note, command, bookmark, workspace, drawing, video or meeting with its star, or press Ctrl+D. Favorites show first whenever the bar opens, in the order you starred them.
• Sums. Type 1280*1.15 or (45+30)/2. The bar knows +, -, *, /, ^ (powers), % (the remainder of a division, not a percentage), ×, ÷ and brackets, and Enter copies the answer. Dates and phone numbers such as 2026-09-28 are left alone.
• Themes. Type a theme's name, such as Aurora, and choose Theme: Aurora to change Barside's look.
• Modes. Switch modes by typing writer, reader, team or creator. See app modes.
• Quit. Type quit to close Barside completely.

Windows, Linux and Mac

The search bar, aliases and hotkeys work the same on Windows, Linux and Mac. On a Linux desktop that uses Wayland, as many GNOME and KDE desktops now do, global hotkeys work while an X11 app is active. Hotkeys and aliases says so, and each command gets a copy button for a command such as barside --run quick, which you can add as a shortcut in your desktop's keyboard settings. Barside's app menu also has New note, Search Barside and Quit Barside.

In Barside for Mac, app shortcuts use the Command key where Windows and Linux use Ctrl, so ⌘K opens the search bar inside Barside. Hotkeys that work from any app show the Mac key symbols (⌃⌥⇧⌘), and Control or Command with one key is refused. Barside waits in the menu bar instead of the tray, and ⌘Q quits it, like typing quit in the search bar.

Privacy

The search runs on your computer, over your own library, and typing in the bar sends nothing anywhere. Hotkeys, aliases and favorites are settings of each computer. Cloud sync, part of Barside Plus, keeps them separate on each one.

Quick AI is the one exception. When you press Tab, your question, and the notes and results the assistant needs to answer it, go to the AI company you connected, and that company's data policy applies. Read the AI you connect and your data.

How it compares

If you are looking for a keyboard launcher, Barside's bar searches your own notes and runs Barside's commands, rather than every file on your computer. Read the Raycast alternative for Windows to see where each fits. If copying and pasting is the job, compare the best clipboard managers.

Works well with