Global list of assigned keyboard shortcuts osx?

Question

I favor keyboard shortcuts over mouse actions so I'm heavily using keyboard shortcuts with all kinds of applications. Every now and then I'm running into a situation where I assign a keyboard shortcut that has already been used in a different app. Not all apps show warnings when you re-use a combination that has already been used. Also, since I tend to forget some of the lesser used combinations, it would be nice to find out what has been assigned where. System Preferences doesn't list all of them, but since my Mac responds to them, there must be some way to get a global list of all assigned keyboard shortcuts. Does anyone know of a command/script/application that displays them all?

Answer 1

What you want may not be possible. Consider the method by which a application specific system-wide shortcuts may be implemented: event taps. An application can do whatever it wants with an event and never actually register the event with the system. Thus, no application could be written to identify every possible event!

Here is an app that does almost what you want:

http://www.ergonis.com/products/keycue/

It even updates its list when shortcuts are changed.

You can download a list of additional system-wide shortcuts from their site that includes keys not listed anywhere else. But it doesn't show shortcuts for continuously active applications such as Evernote.

Further, you can query and modify hotkeys programmatically:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/24/hotkeys_framework2/

(but it still won't know about event taps)

This list of all system shortcuts from Apple is also useful:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1343