What you need to know
- Keyboard Maestro 10 is now available for download.
- New features include favorite actions, the ability to put Macro Groups in the menu bar, and more.
Popular — and for good reason! — Mac automation app Keyboard Maestro has a new version 10 update out with a long laundry list of changes and improvements. The new update is available for download now and offers upgrade pricing for existing users.
For those unfamiliar, Keyboard Maestro allows people to automate all manner of things on their Mac and have them initiated at the touch of a button. Simple things like replacing text work as you'd expect, but you can also make hugely complicated Macros that do things I can't even begin to understand. The possibilities are almost endless. Control applications, automate tasks, and even manipulate text and images all from a keystroke — what's not to like? You can get a feel for what Keyboard Maestro can do in the video below.
With this new release, developer Stairways Software has made a ton of changes that you can read about in the release notes, but a few notable additions include the ability to add create configurable Favorite Actions, the option to add Macro Groups in the status Menu bar, and more.
Other improvements include:
A new Paste by Name facility allows you to quickly paste text straight from your clipboard history. The more comprehensive Clipboard History window has also been enhanced to include more information like word and line count, and additional options for setting the clipboard or pasting plain text.Version 10 has a new action that allows you to select an area on the screen, and combining that with the OCR facilities allows you to OCR any area on the screen.The editor is enhanced with the ability to save favorite actions, preconfigured with your choice of values, colors, and other settings. There is also a new Select Macro by Name command to quickly change to a specified macro, search fields in long insertion menus, control over evaluating condition results in real time, a menu item to select the last failed action, easy ways to go to a macro that calls the current macro and much more.This version adds the concept of Subroutines, allowing you to pass multiple parameters to a macro to perform tasks shared by multiple macros and a Return action to return information back to the calling macro. There is also a new Try/Catch action to allow more complex error handling.
The updated Keyboard Maestro can be downloaded now and is priced at $36. Upgrade pricing is available ranging from $18 to $25 depending on when you bought the version of the app you're currently using. That's a bargain for what I'd happily call one of the best Mac apps around. Keyboard Maestro isn't available in the App Store but you can buy it direct now.
