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For many a power user on the Mac, one’s left thumb is permanently rooted on the Command (⌘) key ready to fire off any of the scores of keyboard shortcuts Apple’s built into OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. These two, three and sometimes four key combinations make it fast and easy to Print (⌘ + P), Save As (⌘ + ⇧ + S), open Preferences (⌘ + comma) or simply Quit (⌘ + Q) one or Quit All (⌘ + ⇧ + Q) of the applications you’re using.

Better still, you can add your own keyboard shortcut for any existing menu command in any application. For example, one Safari’s coolest features is Private Browsing (a.k.a. porn mode), but the only way to turn it on is to take your right hand off the keyboard, grab the mouse, find the cursor on the screen, move to the Safari menu item and then click Private Browsing.

For me at least, using the mouse or trackpad is a frustratingly slow waste of time. Here’s how add a keyboard shortcut for Private Browsing and accelerate your Safari workflow:

① Open System Preferences, navigate to the “Keyboard” preference pane and then click the “Keyboard Shortcuts” tab.
—Click “Application Shortcuts” from the tray on the left

② Click the little plus (+) sign

③ Choose Safari from “Applications” the drop-down menu

④ Then, enter the exact name of the menu command, in this case “Private Browsing,” you want to create a keyboard shortcut for.

⑤ Then just pick your keyboard shortcut (i.e. ⌥ + ⌘ + P a.k.a. Option + Command + P), click “Add,” and—Voilà!—you’ve successfully added a new shortcut to invoke Private Browsing mode in Safari on your Mac.

See also: OS X keyboard shortcuts! Get yer shortcuts here!

The beauty of this tutorial is that you can use it to add a keyboard shortcut for any menu command in any application. For example, I’ve added an Export (⌥ + ⇧+ ⌘+ E) in Numbers and Adjust Size… (⌥ + ⌘ + I) in Preview, two little things that speed up my workflow and save me time daily.

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Filed under: Apple Evangelizing, How to, Mac, Software