System

The System screen lets you put everyday Mac commands — sleeping, locking, restarting, emptying the Trash, changing the volume and more — on your own keyboard shortcuts, so you can trigger them from anywhere without reaching for a menu. Nothing is assigned to start with; you pick which commands matter to you and choose a shortcut for each.

What the System screen does

Think of the System screen as a list of one-tap Mac commands. Each row is a single action — Sleep, Lock Screen, Empty Trash, Volume Up, and so on — and next to each one you can record a global keyboard shortcut. “Global” means the shortcut works no matter which app you’re in: press it while writing an email, browsing, or coding, and the action runs.

Every action is off until you record a shortcut for it — there are no defaults. The commands are grouped into four sections — Power, Session, Finder & Appearance and Volume — followed by a short note about permissions.

Assigning a shortcut

Every row works the same way: a small recorder on the right captures the key combination you want to use for that action.

Recording a shortcut

Click Record Shortcut on the action’s row. The label changes to Type shortcut….
Press the key combination you want — for example ⌘⇧S. The combination must include at least one modifier (⌘, ⌥, ⌃ or ⇧); a plain letter on its own is ignored.
As soon as you press a valid combination it’s saved automatically, and the row shows the combination in place of the label.

Press Esc while recording to cancel and keep whatever was there before. Press Delete (or Backspace) to clear the shortcut entirely.

Changing or clearing a shortcut

Once an action has a shortcut, the row shows that combination instead of Record Shortcut. To change it, click it and record a new one. To remove it, click the Clear shortcut (×) button beside it — the action goes back to having no shortcut.

When a shortcut is already in use

Shortcuts have to be unique across Uncapped. If you record a combination that’s already used somewhere else — another System action, or an action on the Windows, Apps, or Trackpad screens — Uncapped shows a Shortcut Already in Use prompt telling you what currently owns it.

Choose Reassign to move the combination to the new action. It’s automatically removed from whatever had it before, so a press is never ambiguous.
Choose Cancel to leave everything as it was.

Power

Sleep — puts your Mac to sleep, the same as choosing Sleep from the Apple menu.
Sleep Displays — turns the screen(s) off without putting the whole Mac to sleep. Handy for stepping away while a download or render keeps running.
Lock Screen — locks your Mac instantly and shows the login window, so you’re back to the password prompt right away. It happens immediately, with no confirmation, and needs no permission.

For the technically curious. Sleep is a one-line AppleScript sent to macOS’s System Events. Sleep Displays has no AppleScript equivalent, so Uncapped runs the built-in pmset displaysleepnow command (it needs no special privileges). Lock Screen calls SACLockScreenImmediate() from macOS’s login framework — a private but long-stable call — which is why it locks instantly without going through a prompt.

Session

Log Out — logs out of your user account.
Restart — restarts your Mac.
Shut Down — shuts your Mac down.

These three act immediately — Uncapped doesn’t show its own “are you sure?” prompt first. Pick combinations you won’t trigger by accident (a shortcut built on the Hyper Key is a good choice). macOS may still warn you if apps have unsaved changes, as it normally does.

Finder & Appearance

Empty Trash — empties the Trash. Uncapped checks first and tells you what happened with a brief on-screen message: “Trash emptied” when it cleared something, “The Trash is already empty” when there was nothing to remove, or “Couldn’t empty the Trash” if something went wrong.
Toggle Appearance — switches macOS between Light and Dark mode. Press once to go dark, press again to go back to light.

For the technically curious. Toggle Appearance flips macOS’s dark-mode preference via System Events.

Volume

Volume Up — raises the system output volume one step (about 6 out of 100) each press.
Volume Down — lowers the system output volume by the same step each press.
Toggle Mute — mutes the output, and unmutes it on the next press.

These three change your own Mac’s sound directly and need no permission.

Permissions

A few of these actions ask macOS for permission the first time you use them — this is normal, and you only have to do it once.

The first time you run an action that controls macOS — Sleep, Restart, Shut Down, Log Out, Empty Trash or Toggle Appearance — macOS asks you to let Uncapped control “System Events” (or “Finder”, for Empty Trash). Click OK to allow it: you grant this just once, and the shortcut works every time afterward. Volume and Lock Screen need no permission at all.

For the technically curious. Those actions are short AppleScripts addressed to System Events (or Finder), which triggers macOS’s one-time Automation permission prompt the first time. The volume commands run inside Uncapped’s own process, and Lock Screen uses a direct system call — so neither of those ever prompts. Behind the scenes, each shortcut you record is registered as a global hotkey with macOS, which is what lets it fire from any app.

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