⚡ More performance improvements and new ways to send context to AI
By Steven Van ·
The macOS release adds tools for custom AI providers and cuts File Search memory use by up to 95% while searching.
A busy AI chat or a heavy note no longer slows down Root Search in Raycast v2.7 for macOS. AI Chat, Notes and Settings now run in separate processes, with closed windows freeing their memory after a cooldown period. The launcher can use up to 35% less memory while idle.
Send screen context to AI
Two new commands share screen content with AI Chat. Send Element to AI lets users hover over a paragraph, image or button and click to send it. Send Window to AI shares a whole window instead. Users can assign a hotkey to Send Element to AI for quicker access.
Tools for custom AI providers
Custom provider models can now use Raycast's Web Search, Read Page, Search Images and Chart tools. A tools block in providers.yaml enables them, with each tool configured to run through Raycast, a company gateway or a supported vendor for which the user has a key: Tavily, Exa, Firecrawl, Brave, Perplexity or Jina.
AI requests are also smaller. Initial context is 15% smaller for normal queries, or 40% smaller with automatic extension and skill discovery turned off. Raycast says this makes local models reply faster to simple messages and reduces credit use for simple requests without sacrificing response quality.
Faster File Search
File Search uses up to 80% less memory at peak and up to 95% less while searching. Searches are up to 30% faster, depending on the search terms and number of documents, and background indexing uses less CPU. Common development caches, including .cargo/global-cache and .venv, are now excluded from indexing, and the details panel shows image dimensions.
Other workflow changes
- Script Commands gain controls to enable or disable background refresh for individual scripts.
- AI Commands and automations now include questions in their replies instead of stopping to show a question form.
- If Replace Selection cannot paste an AI response, it keeps the response on the clipboard and in Clipboard History and shows a warning. This also applies to Translator.
- Clipboard History can save Universal Clipboard items from an iPhone or iPad as soon as they arrive, through an option in its settings.
- Root Search favors complete words and exact title matches while preserving learned results, and prioritizes applications when results are otherwise equally relevant.
The v2.7 changelog also lists improvements to dictation, navigation and settings, alongside fixes for memory leaks, hotkeys, notes and chat behavior.
