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Power Features

System Commands

System Commands give you a Raycast command for the actions you'd otherwise dig through menu bars, system menus, or keyboard shortcuts for. Lock the screen, restart, toggle the system appearance, mute the volume; they're all one search away, and pair perfectly with hotkeys and aliases.

System Commands are organised into the System Actions built-in extension. They're available out of the box on both Mac and Windows, with a few platform-specific extras on each.

  • Lock Screen: Lock the screen of your computer.
  • Sleep: Put your computer to sleep.
  • Hibernate (Windows): Hibernate your computer.
  • Sleep Displays: Put the displays of your computer to sleep.
  • Restart: Restart your computer.
  • Shut Down: Shut down your computer.
  • Log Out: Log out from the current user.
  • Show Screen Saver: Start the screen saver.
  • Play / Pause: Play or pause the current track.
  • Next Track: Play the next track.
  • Previous Track: Play the previous track.
  • Toggle Mute: Mute or unmute your computer's speaker.
  • Turn Volume Up / Turn Volume Down: Step the volume up or down.
  • Set Volume: Set the volume to a specific value.
  • Set Volume to 0% / 25% / 50% / 75% / 100%: Jump straight to a preset level.
  • Show Desktop: Hide every window and reveal the desktop.
  • Toggle System Appearance: Switch between light and dark mode.
  • Toggle Stage Manager (Mac): Turn Stage Manager on or off.
  • Toggle HDR (Windows): Turn HDR on or off.
  • Toggle Night Light (Windows): Turn Night Light on or off.
  • Open Trash: Open the Trash in Finder or File Explorer.
  • Empty Trash: Empty the Trash.
  • Eject All Disks (Mac): Eject every mounted disk image.
  • Toggle Hidden Files: Show or hide hidden files in the file browser.
  • Hide All Apps Except Frontmost: View the front app and hide everything else.
  • Unhide All Hidden Apps (Mac): Bring every hidden app back into view.
  • Quit All Apps: Quit every running application.
  • Quit All Apps Except Frontmost: Same as above, but keep the front app open.
  • Dismiss Notifications (Mac): Clear every notification on screen.
  • Toggle Bluetooth: Turn Bluetooth on or off.

Search for any System Command in Root Search and hit Enter to run it. Most are one-shot, with no follow-up screen, the action just happens.

System Commands shine when you assign them aliases or hotkeys. Open any command's action panel and choose Configure Command (or see Aliases & Hotkeys) to set:

  • An Alias so typing lock, mute, or restart jumps straight to the command.
  • A Hotkey for true one-press triggering, even when Raycast isn't open.

Common patterns:

  • Lock Screen with a global hotkey for stepping away from your machine.
  • Toggle System Appearance on a hotkey for quick light/dark switching.
  • Toggle Mute on a hotkey when you join a call from any app.
  • Empty Trash with the alias et for occasional clean-ups.
  • Show warning before quitting applications: When enabled (default), Raycast asks for confirmation before quitting everything. Disable it for instant quitting.
  • Excluded Applications: A list of apps that should stay open when you run Quit All Apps. Useful for keeping browsers, music players, or chat apps running while clearing everything else.

The same preferences apply to Quit All Apps Except Frontmost.