How to Add Customized Options to Right-Click Menu on Your Mac

Every user may have some tasks needed to be done regularly. How to make a repetitive task handy to complete? Have you ever thought of executing the task within a command? For instance, when you need to rename a bulk of photos, or convert these image files from PNG to JPG, you may tend to perform the task using Photoshop. If you know how to make use of the built-in Automator, you can create a customized command for performing the task, and add the command to the right-click menu for easy access and fast execution.

Does this idea sound attracting to you? This post will show you how to customize your right-click menu, how to create a keyboard shortcut for each menu option and how to delete the command you created.

First of all, you need to create a customized command in Automator. Here we illustrate the process with an example – how to change image files from PNG to JPG.

• Open Automator from the Applications folder, Launchpad, or Spotlight.
• Select “Services” as the type for your document, and click on “Choose” button.
• Select “image files” from the “Service receives selected” drop-down menu.

• Under the “Actions”, select “Photos” > “Change Type of Images”.
• Click on “Add” in the Copy Finder Items dialog box, so that your original PNG images will remains while the copied ones will be converted to JPG images.
• Select a location for output files from the “Copy Finder Items” drop-down menu.
• Select “JPEG” from the “Change Type of Images” drop-down menu.

• Head to the “File” menu on the top, and choose “Save” from the list.
• Type a name for this workflow (e.g. “Save as JPG”), and click on “Save” button.

Now if you select a non-JPG image and right-click on it, you will able to choose the option with the name you just typed in the Service submenu. Clicking on the option will execute the specified command, i.e. turn your selected image into JPG format. In Automator, you can create other useful workflow by combining available actions, thus to cover your particular needs and to perform complex work within clicks.

Moreover, you can assign a keyboard shortcut for this command, to make it run faster.

Open up System Preferences from Apple menu, and click on Keyboard in the panel.
Select the “Keyboard Shortcuts” tab and click on the “Services” in left-hand column.
Choose the command in right-hand column, and click on “add shortcut” next to it.
Specify your preferred combination keys in the blank box to set a shortcut.

Now you can select target files and use the keyboard shortcut to execute the command. Then what if you need to disable or remove the option from the Service submenu?

To deactivate the command (but still keep it), go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services, and then uncheck the item you don’t want shown in the right-click menu. To remove the workflow command, you will need to open Finder, go to the ~/Library/Service folder, and delete the item from there.

Is this tutorial helpful for you? Feel free to share your idea in the comment section.