Is there a way for BTT to be aware of when I have Spotlight open?

I learned that when you have Spotlight open, you can send your search query directly to Google (or your default search engine in your default browser) with the keyboard command ⌘+B. I'd like to remap this with BTT to ⌘+return... but only when the Spotlight search field/window is open and active. Is BTT able to detect this?

Thanks!

Strange, this used to work with the Advances Conditions. The Spotlight window is named: “Spotlight - Spotlight - 23”

BTT shows the name in the “Visible Windows Viewer”, but does not recognize it as a condition. Maybe Andreas can explain this. :man_shrugging:

that should work fine, make sure to use „contains“ as condition

Unfortunately not. I have 5 key sequences that should only work in the Spotlight window. This condition

They no longer work. Unfortunately, I don't know since when.

I think that might be some other problem, the condition seems to work ok here. Does it turn green when you open Spotlight?

It used to, but not anymore :man_shrugging:

Shouldn't the name be displayed here?

image

Edit: I don't quite understand. Has anything changed in the appearance of the window? Even with this condition (which is fulfilled) it does not turn green.

ah good point I haven’t added that in the updated condition viewer in the current alphas yet :grinning: will add later

Thanks for this nudge! "Advanced Conditions" is new to me. I got it to work!

According to the Visible Window Viewer, Spotlight is Spotlight - (null) - 23.

So, the condition that seems to work for me is:

visible_window_list CONTAINS "Spotlight"

I just now set this up, so I haven't done any longterm testing. I'll report back if I learn anything new.


As an aside, I am constantly impressed with how much BTT is capable of. Thanks so much!

The word “spotlight” is not that rare. Every web page with this word leads to a false positive result. It is probably better to do it this way. :slightly_smiling_face:

Good advice. Thanks.

Question: the visible window viewer shows it as Spotlight - (null), so should I use that instead of Spotlight - Spotlight?

use exactly as your visible window viewer shows it while it's active

1 Like

Normally you can simply select and copy the name. This is not possible with Spotlight because the window disappears when you try. :slightly_smiling_face:

@Andreas_Hegenberg Could it be that this window is called differently with different macos? Mine is called differently.

If it's helpful, I'm on a brand new M4 MacBook Pro running macOS 15.2.