AutoHotKey Automate Repetitive Tasks · AutoHotKey Tutorial and Review

If you are into productivity like I am, you sometimes wish you would have some tool that you could use to automate your keyboard actions. In my case, I look up a lot of stuff on Google. Who isn’t?

So, I use when I’m in chrome I use the Ctrl+C, Ctrl+T, Ctrl+V, Enter sequence a lot. Which means you copy it, you open a new tab, you paste it, and you press enter to start looking up whatever you have copied on Google.

Well, since I’m into productivity, and after I did this through times I thought to myself, there has to be an easier way to do this, and then I found a nice tool that can actually do this and a lot more.

Hi, my name is Olaf, and today I’m going to talk you through a nice nifty tool called AutoHotKey.

00:51 Why Did I Need AutoHotKey to Automate Repetitive Tasks?

• to look up things on Google
• to prevent mouse use as much as possible
• to mute or unmute my system

So, as said, I started using it for looking things up on Google. And I’ve been trying to prevent mouse use as much as possible, since switching from and to keyboard and mouse will take you a lot of time. At least a lot.

Well, if you take it over the course of a day it wouldn’t seem like a lot, but if you do it all year long it would add up to something pretty significant.

Another thing that was lacking on my keyboard is a mute button. Sometimes I’m in the middle of something, the phone rings or microphone calls from downstairs, and you have to mute your system instantly. Well, there is no button on my system for that, so I thought maybe I can use AutoHotKey to do this as well. And guess what, it’s possible.

01:40 Benefits of AutoHotKey Automate Repetitive Tasks

What are the benefits of AutoHotKey?

• Free
• Easy installation 
• Lightweight
• Versatile
• You can use one shortcut instead of 10 keyboard actions
• Time saver

It’s free. That’s the main benefit of everything, of course. Very easy installation, it’s lightweight, it’s versatile, and you can use one shortcut that you can program instead of maybe 10 keyboard actions that you would have to do otherwise. So, it’s a massive time saver when used correctly.

02:06 AutoHotKey Automate Repetitive Tasks Use Cases

What are the use cases for this?

• Google Search when selecting text
• Repurpose Function Keys
• Launch program
• Open web page
• Open favorite folders
• Adjust volume
• Mute/unmute volume

Well, as explained I use it a lot for Google search, but you could also repurpose your obsolete function keys, I mean, how much function keys do you use on a daily basis. I maybe use F11 for a full window or let’s say a full screen rather and F12 when using a chrome or Internet Explorer and I have to inspect stuff.

But you can also use it for launching some programs or have F3 for opening up some webpage that you program into it or open your favorite folders that you use a lot or adjust volume with let’s say F7 is up and F8 is down.

Or in my case, I use mute or unmute volume with F9. So, this is really a very cool feature that you can do with AutoHotKey. But if you want, there are numerous other options to be had, and you have a lot of predefined scripts that you can find on the  AutoHotKey website.

03:17 AutoHotKey Automate Repetitive Tasks Reviews

So, what are people saying about it?

Well, to be honest, AutoHotKey Automate Repetitive Tasks is not a very easy tool.

You really have to dig into it a bit, but once you find how the system works and get the hang of it, it’s not that complicated after all, at least not if you’re a bit tech-savvy and certainly not if you are a programmer or developer.

And here you can see the ratings are pretty high because people like the versatility of it and the power of it. 

I mean you can literally do well, for example, if you have like a text with your address in it or some other statement in it, you could have some command and spit out the text automatically for you when you are pressing this command button.

So, it can be really powerful.

04:03 AutoHotKey Tutorial

But as usual, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so let’s go to one of my folders that I have a couple of those AutoHotKey.

You see .ahk which means AutoHotKey. So .ahk is a file that is an AutoHotKey file. And if I would open up, for example, this Google search with my notebook, you would see what it’s like.

So, basically what it says here is the command I use is Ctrl+Q and what it does is it sends Ctrl+C, Ctrl+T, Ctrl+V, and then it would Enter and that’s it.

So let’s see how this works if I, for example, would look up Roger Federer in this case, and I would say I really want to know more about ATP Records, I just go Ctrl+Q and there it is, it will look up ATP Records.

Or I would do something else like we say, Martina Hingis. Let’s say I have this, and I want to look it up, I say Ctrl+Q and there you go.

Without leaving the keyboard, I could use this on every website. If I went to the website and let’s say I would want to look up something about Covid-19, I would say Ctrl+Q and there it is. 

Everything you come across on a chrome page you can use to do.

06:13 AutoHotKey Examples

Another example would be the mute button or open the latest folder or put quotes around a word. But let’s say if you would like to check this, I would open it with a notepad. I just copied this script from somebody else I didn’t invent it, I just googled for it and I use it. In this case, I use F9 for mute and unmute.

And this one, for example, puts quotes around a word. So, you just copy a word, and you run this command Ctrl+J, and it would put quotes around. It can be very handy sometimes.

So, this is how AutoHotKey Automate Repetitive Tasks can help you speed up things to make you more productive and really take out of your hands a lot of keyboard functions that you could just do with one easy command.

Well, thanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the next video.

Good luck 🍀🙏
Olaf the ToolFinderr