Shortcuts app has to run to use keyboard shortcuts

I have a Shortcut that I assigned a non-conflicting keyboard shortcut too. It is a Finder Quick Action that produces an EXIF metadata dump of an image. Without the Shortcuts application running, I can single-click on a random image and press ^⇧R and an appropriate SwiftUI window appears reflecting that image data.

Using macOS 15.6.1.

And I have a Shortcut that when you select a list of words in a document (e.g. Pages), and press ^⇧L it presents the following dialog and instantly processes the word list in place:

Shortcuts is not running. It is not tied to Pages, and also as a Services only item, it will work in BBEdit just as well where the ^⇧L keyboard shortcut does not work — even though there is no keyboard shortcut conflict.

This is no question, but to document the answer I would have wanted for previous questions.

But the answer is not true. Keyboard Shortcuts to shortcuts work regardless of Shortcuts run status.

I can imagine that if the active app uses the same keyboard shortcut you assigned, then it will get first dibs. If it is not active, then your shortcut should be executed.

If that behavior is not working for you, then perhaps you have something installed that is interfering with keyboard shortcuts.

You can try it with this one. If you have Safari open and active, it will add this website to the reading list. If Safari isn't active, it will either paste the date into an active text field or it will copy it to the clipboard.

My shortcut is cmd-opt-D so as not to conflict with Safari, but cmd-shift-D was used as a demonstration.

In my case it was not a finder quick action so it was a different problem. It was a general shortcut that should work in any app or without an app open.

You can't have a keyboard shortcut without it being a Quick Action. Or, at least I cannot make a shortcut with a keyboard shortcut unless Quick Action is selected.

There was an old bug that predates Shortcuts (I haven’t noticed it recently) where you had to select the item from the Services menu before the keyboard shortcut would work. If that bug has returned, it might be causing the issues you see.