Add Keyboard Shortcut to Unity Lenses [Ubuntu]

Do you know that all the default Unity lenses come with a keyboard shortcut that you can use to quickly access it? For example, you can use “Super + a” to open the Application lens and “Super + f” to open the Files lens.

What if you have installed a custom lens and want to assign a keyboard shortcut to the lens? Here is how you can do so:

1. Open Nautilus and navigate to the folder “/usr/share/unity/lenses“. Find the lens that you want to add keyboard shortcut to and open it with superuser permission. For example:

gksu gedit /usr/share/unity/lenses/commands/commands.lens

2. At the end of the [Lens] section, add a new line:

Shortcut=c

where “c” is the alphabet that you want to set for this lens. Save and exit.

3. Now you can access the lens with “Super + c” (or the alphabet that you have set).

That’s it.