Command Palette

Open the palette with Control + Option + Space (configurable with the other keyboard shortcuts) and search windows, app menus, clipboard history, OmniWM commands, applications, or files from one shared surface.

Modes

The palette has six modes:

Windows — Cmd + 1
Menu — Cmd + 2
Clipboard — Cmd + 3
Commands — Cmd + 4
Applications — Cmd + 5
Files — Cmd + 6

Tab / Shift + Tab cycle forward or backward through the available modes.

Navigating results

Up / Down move the selection.
Enter activates the selected result.
In Windows mode, Shift + Enter summons the selected window to the right of the focused one when available, or moves it into an empty current workspace, including floating windows. Floating windows cannot be summoned right.
In Applications and Files, Cmd + Enter reveals the selection in Finder.
Escape dismisses the palette.

Windows from macOS-hidden apps remain searchable and carry a Hidden badge; selecting one unhides its app and focuses that exact window. In Menu mode, results always show keyboard shortcuts when available.

Window marks

In Windows mode, Mark selected window (Control + Option + Shift + M) names the selected result, and Remove mark (Control + Option + Shift + R) removes one of its marks. The buttons remain available if an enabled global shortcut uses either chord. Marks appear beside windows and match searches by name. Names are unique across windows and last until the window closes or OmniWM quits. Separate global set/remove actions default to Unassigned in Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts.

OmniWM commands

Commands mode lists OmniWM actions by category, including actions without a shortcut. Each row shows the layout it supports and its current shortcut, or Unassigned / No shortcut when none is available. Type to search across command names, related terms, and shortcuts; results then appear in relevance order without category headings.

Select a compatible command and press Enter to run it. Commands that require a different layout remain visible with a dimmed row and cannot be run until that layout is active.

Applications and Files

Applications and Files open as browse grids. Use the view menu to switch either mode between grid and list; the choice is remembered separately for each mode. Type to search the current mode. Applications come from the system’s registered app catalog, including alternate app names. Files are searched through the macOS metadata index and can be narrowed with type chips. Before typing, Files shows recent documents and, when the local prediction cache is readable, suggested documents.

Enter opens the selected app or file. Cmd + Enter reveals it in Finder. Typed searches are ranked with the decoded macOS Spotlight scoring rules where available, while browsing without a query lists suggestions and apps alphabetically; Spotlight’s full app prediction and semantic suggestion models are not available to OmniWM.

How search ranks results

Window search uses substring matching with tiered ranking. Mark-name matches rank first, followed by window title, app name, and workspace name. Typing part of the literal word “hidden” surfaces windows of hidden apps. Title, app, and workspace matches closer to the start rank higher; ties and mark matches retain the window list’s order.

With no search, windows use focus history, then app name and title, with hidden apps last.

Clipboard history

Clipboard history is off by default. Open Clipboard mode (Cmd + 3) and click Enable, or set clipboard.historyEnabled = true in settings.toml.

History retains text, rich text, HTML, images, file references, and safe native formats within the configured limits. Items marked concealed, transient, or autogenerated, including recognized password-manager markers, are skipped. You can add exact pasteboard type identifiers to clipboard.ignoredTypes to exclude more content.

In Clipboard mode, Enter or a row click copies the selected entry. Shift + Enter and the row’s Paste button paste into the previous app when that target is still available. The row menu offers Paste Without Formatting for text, Pin/Unpin, and Delete. The selected entry has a scrollable preview. Clear removes unpinned history; pinned entries remain until deleted.

History is deduplicated — copying identical content again updates the existing entry and moves it to the top instead of creating a duplicate. Entries are written with owner-only file permissions to OmniWM’s state directory (${XDG_STATE_HOME:-$HOME/.local/state}/omniwm), outside dotfile-oriented config storage.

Control + Option + M opens the frontmost app’s menus at your cursor. Available items depend on what the app exposes through macOS Accessibility.