User Guide

The complete user guide for The Magic Highlighter.

User Guide

The Magic Highlighter is meant to help save you time while you browse the internet. In most cases, it should “just work”™ and won’t require any input. However, in some cases you may wish to add a highlighted term or phrase, toggle highlights, change highlight colors, and more – in which case the fastest way to interact with The Magic Highlighter is via its keyboard shortcut(s).

Get Started
Use Magic Highlights
Use Keyboard Shortcuts
Use Keyboard Navigation

Getting Started

For help getting started with The Magic Highlighter, please visit the Getting Started guide.

Use Magic Highlights

The Magic Highlighter is a Safari Extension for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It installs like an app, but once you enable it, you can use Safari like you normally would. The Magic Highlighter will automatically highlight search terms and phrases on search result web pages.

Step 1: Search it.

The Magic Highlighter pays attention to search terms and phrases every time you search on Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, Neeva, Brave Search, or Kagi.

Step 2: Magic Highlights! ⚡️

When you click search result links, The Magic Highlighter will automatically highlight the terms and phrases you searched on the search result web page.

NOTE: you won’t see highlights on the list of search results – only on the actual search result pages (i.e. on the links you click through to).

Step 3: Profit!

The Magic Highlighter eliminates the need to smash ⌘-F (like a Neanderthal)!

Use Keyboard Shortcuts!

Use the following keyboard shortcuts to control The Magic Highlighter (Mac and iPad only).

NOTE: there is technically only one keyboard shortcut for The Magic Highlighter (⌘-Shift-F). This keyboard shortcut opens The Magic Highlighter’s Safari Extension popup menu. Once the Safari Extension popup menu is opened, you can interact with it via Keyboard Navigation (e.g. ↑, ↓, ←, →, Space, A, D, and F). However, there are a few functions which it makes sense to access quickly by triggering The Magic Highlighter’s keyboard shortcut, followed by a command. These combinations have been included in this list for reference.

⌘-Shift-F: Opens the popup.

NOTE: If no search terms or phrases are currently configured, a prompt to input text to “Find on page” will automatically appear. When this happens, just press ⌘-Shift-F, then type a phrase and press Return to highlight.
⌘-Shift-F + F: Enter a new search term.
⌘-Shift-F + A: Toggle all highlights (on/off).
⌘-Shift-F + D: Delete search terms or phrases. Repeat to delete all phrases (i.e. ⌘-Shift-F + D,D,D...).
⌘-Option-F: Toggles magic highlights (on/off).

NOTE: “magic highlights” are applied to search result links. Changes to this setting will be applied the next time you perform a search. Disabling magic highlights doesn’t disable The Magic Highlighter extension - it just prevents it from automatically highlighting search terms and phrases on search result web pages. The ⌘-Shift-F keyboard shortcut will still be available as a super-powered replacement for the built-in ⌘-F keyboard shortcut.

Use Keyboard Navigation!

Use the following keys to navigate The Magic Highlighter popup window (Mac and iPad only).

Number keys (1–6): Use the number keys (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) to select one of the six highlight colors.
Left and Right arrow keys: Use the Left (←) and Right (→) arrow keys to select a highlight color.
Up and Down arrow keys: Use the Up (↑) and Down (↓) arrow keys to select a term or phrase.
Space: Use the Space bar to “select” or “toggle” a color, term, or phrase.
F: Use the F key to “Find on page”.

PROTIP: use ⌘-Shift-F + F to “Find on page” (i.e. ⌘-Shift-F to open the popup, then F to add a term or phrase). If there are no search terms or phrases, the “Find on page” prompt will automatically open with ⌘-Shift-F.
A: Use the A key to toggle highlights (on/off).
D: Use the D key to delete a search term or phrase.

NOTE: if a term or phrase is not currently selected, the first term or phrase will be automatically highlighted. Once a term or phrase is highlighted, pressing D again will delete the phrase.

Get The Magic Highlighter TODAY

The Magic Highlighter is available on the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Find what you’ve been searching for. ⚡️