How to use the Services menu in macOS
macOS has a host of powerful automation features that many users never discover. They've been around for years and are hiding in menus that you use every day. They're called Services, and are among the most flexible and underrated tools on your Mac.
What are Services?
Services are shortcuts in macOS that let you carry out commonly-performed tasks in apps even when you aren't actually using those apps. For example, you could highlight an address in a document and open it directly in Maps, or select a photo in Finder and instantly create a PDF from it without opening Preview.
macOS comes with a lot of built-in Services, and many third-party apps add their own as well. They're often pretty simple, like opening files, performing quick searches, or copying text. But what makes the feature especially powerful is that you can create your own much more complex Services for whatever you need.
Services aren't quite automated because you have to trigger them manually, but they can contain multiple actions stacked together to make a real time-saver.
How to activate and use Services
Services are contextual. The ones available to you at any given time depend on what you're doing and which app you're using. You'll need to activate a lot of them before you can use them. The setting for that is well hidden; it's at System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services. From there, you can see all the available Services and enable the ones that sound most useful.
It's worth checking this from time to time, as third-party apps often add new ones but don't ever let you know that they exist. You have to activate them to use them.
You typically use Services by selecting something—a file, folder, some text, and so on—then right-clicking and going to the Services option from the pop-up menu. The right-click menu gets overridden in some apps, but you can always access it via the menu bar instead.
You can also assign keyboard shortcuts to any Service, making it easy to quickly access the ones you use frequently.
It sounds strange to describe Services as a hidden feature because they're hiding in plain sight. But nobody ever talks about Services; they appear at the very bottom of the right-click menu, and it isn't immediately obvious what they're for. In my experience, a lot of Mac users simply don't know they're there.
How Services are different from Quick Actions
Services are a relatively old feature in macOS, and in the last few versions, they've been somewhat superseded by the Shortcuts app and its Quick Actions .
The big difference between the two is that Quick Actions are predominantly used to perform system tasks or actions on files and folders in Finder. Services, by comparison, can be used pretty much anywhere. The two have some overlap with the Finder-based actions, but the ability to use Services in other apps makes them more powerful.
Quick Actions feel more modern because you make and manage them in the Shortcuts app. You can also get them to work on your iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Services are more reliant on the neglected Automator app, which is a lot less user-friendly.
It's possible that they might be phased out eventually. But for now, Services remain a hidden gem for power users.
How to make your own macOS Services
To create a new Service, open the Automator app through Spotlight or the Applications folder. Click "New Document" and then select "Quick Action" from the grid of options. On older versions of macOS, select "Service" instead.
You now have to build your Service in the main window on the right. First, choose what the Service will work on in the dropdown box next to "Workflow receives current." For instance, you might want it to work with text, images, folders, or something else. You can also limit it to a specific application.
Now, in the left pane, choose an Action that you want to perform. This can be anything from resizing images or creating calendar events, to running a script for more advanced Services. Drag the Actions into the window. You can stack together as many as you want. In my example below, I've made a Service to copy some text, create a new TextEdit document, and then paste the text into it.
Finally, save the Service. You can access it through the Services menu in relevant apps.
The easy way to make Services
It sounds complicated. And it is, if you don't know what you're doing. Especially if you need to add some code to make a more powerful Service. But there's a trick to make it all a lot easier.
Bear with me, but the best way of creating Services is through vibe coding. I know that vibe coding has a mixed reputation , and anyone who has tried it has likely ended up frustrated. But ChatGPT is remarkably good at creating macOS Services.
Not only will it walk you through the steps, but it will write any code you need as well. And since most Services will only need a handful of lines of code at most, there isn't much that can go wrong. You don't have to be able to understand it; you just have to copy and paste it.
Among the Services I've created in this way are ones to compress files to a timestamped ZIP, to show the real URL from a shortened link, to decode base64 strings, and to open a web page in Brave instead of Safari. I'm finding more uses for them all the time.
Services are an aging feature in macOS, yet they remain incredibly useful. Once you get to grips with them, you can build your own Services to perform those little tasks that you do every day. They let you complete multiple steps with just a couple of clicks.
