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Are you tired of all those boring daily repetitive tasks slowing you down? Well, today I'm going to show you 10 Stream Deck automations that will supercharge your workflow and boost your productivity. I think people often think of Stream Decks as being just for streamers, but I've had one for the past few months and honestly, it's been a game changer for me. Make sure you stick around for the last one because it's a game changer for content creators like you and me. And I'm going to show you how I stream seamlessly using Riverside, my go-to platform for all my content creation needs.
All right, let's start out with a pretty simple but powerful button on the Stream Deck, and that is switching audio outputs. Now, I personally am constantly switching throughout the day between my headphones and my MacBook speakers, particularly when I'm switching between just my normal everyday tasks and then jumping into an editing session or a recording session with Riverside. And so instead of having to go through multiple clicks with my audio output setting in my Apple toolbar, I've got it set up just as a single button on my Stream Deck that automatically switches between my headphones and my MacBook speakers. This one is actually super easy to set up. It's just a free plugin called Audio Switcher that you can get on the Elgato Marketplace. You just download and install it, and then you can select which outputs you want to switch between. You can even set up multiple different switches if you've got multiple outputs. I always prefer using headphones when I'm recording in Riverside because then I can hit everything in the best quality possible. And because Riverside records all of my content to my computer locally before uploading it to the cloud, I can make sure I'm monitoring everything in its native high-quality audio.
All right, so number two is quick toggling dark mode. And this gets into some kind of more advanced but really powerful stuff in the Stream Deck. So on my Mac, I've got it automatically set to switch to dark mode in the evening, but sometimes, again, when I'm recording or doing some color grading, I need my room to be really dark. And so having the option on my Stream Deck to just switch to dark mode with a single press of a button is super handy. The way I've got this set up is with a simple Apple Script. If you're not familiar with coding and scripting and all that kind of thing, don't worry. All you need is ChatGPT. I personally have no background in scripting, especially Apple Scripts or anything like that, but literally all you have to do is ask ChatGPT to create an Apple Script for you that toggles between the dark and the light mode. It will create it for you. Just copy and paste it straight into Apple Script's editor, save it as an application, and then open that with a button on your Stream Deck. I'm going to go through a few more automations that I created with Apple Scripts, but seriously, I highly recommend looking into this because there's so many different things you can do, and it's super powerful.
All right, so number three is controlling smart home devices. So for me, I personally have three different smart lights in my office, and so in the morning, it's really nice to just be able to hit a single button and all of my lights turn on. I've also got a button linked to my living room so I can turn that on and off if I want to. But again, you can link this to all sorts of different smart home devices. This is just what I've got linked up. In terms of setup, this can get a little bit more complicated depending on the smart home devices that you've got. I personally run everything through HomeKit that's running on my NAS, which again, is a little bit more complicated to set up, but there's lots of good tutorials online. Or some brands have native plugins on the Elgato Marketplace, like the Philips Hue lighting, which are just plug and play, so that's a lot easier to set up.
All right, number four is setting up shortcuts to your Notion pages. Now, most people I know who are pretty organized tend to use Notion, and I'm no exception. It's where I plan all of my content, pretty much. It's like my central hub for all of my productivity. But what this often means is that I've got a lot of different projects happening all at once in my Notion workspace, and it can be kind of tedious having to dig through all my different pages to find specific pages that are linked to certain projects. And so I've set up links to my frequently used Notion pages right on my Stream Deck. It's really easy. You just use the website action button and then copy the link from your Notion page into that website action button, and you're good to go. It seriously saves me so much time searching through all of my different Notion pages to try and find the ones that I want.
All right, so idea number five is kind of the next logical step from the Notion shortcuts, and that's creating entire folders for specific projects. So again, you can use this for literally whatever you want in terms of your own projects. For me, I've organized a few different things on my Stream Deck into folders, including video project files, all of my Notion files, and all of my Riverside recordings. For example, I have a folder dedicated to my Riverside podcast recordings. I can just hit a single button, and it automatically opens up my Riverside Studio where I'm ready to record my podcast in high quality or even live stream to multiple platforms all at once. In terms of setting it up, it's actually really straightforward. You just create a folder in the Stream Deck software, and then within that, you can have pretty much as many links as you like. And a pro tip: you could actually even link your smart home automation with one of these buttons. So, for example, I could set up the Stream Deck so that when I open my Riverside Studio, it will automatically switch up my lighting scenario so it's ready for a recording, for example.
All right, number six is one of my favorites, and this is Focus Mode. Now, if you're like me, sometimes you might find it a little bit hard to stay focused. Might be a bit distracted by notifications popping up on your screen or certain apps you might find particularly distracting. And so I've set up a button on my Stream Deck that activates a fully custom Focus Mode. So what happens when I press my Focus Mode button? First of all, it puts the Mac into Do Not Disturb mode so I don't get any notifications. Then it sets my audio output to my headphones because again, when I'm focusing, I like to use my headphones to block out distractions. Next, it'll open Spotify and automatically play a rain sounds playlist. That's what I personally like to focus, but you can set it to whatever you like. And then last but not least, it opens a Pomodoro Timer in my web browser. I find Pomodoro Timers really helpful for just focusing for a certain amount of time. And again, you can set this to whatever you want. So if you have a dedicated Pomodoro app, you could get the app to open. The sky is really the limit. Like, for example, if you're a streamer, combining this button with Riverside could be a game changer for you because you can even link opening a Riverside studio with the Focus Mode so that when you're live streaming to multiple platforms, there's no distractions and you can just be really dialed into what you're doing. Plus, with Riverside, it's really handy because you can see all of your chats from multiple platforms in the one place, and it will record your entire stream into your Riverside studio. And I've personally found this to be much easier than using OBS, for example, to stream because you can manage everything in one place. And then later, when your stream is over, you can automatically edit clips from your stream using the Riverside editor, which again, just really streamlines your whole process and helps you be more productive. In terms of setup, this one uses a multi-action switch on the Stream Deck. The way it works is it's got two modes: on and off. And then you just set up all the different actions you want to happen when you've got it switched on or when you've got it switched off. Again, I use an Apple Script to activate the Do Not Disturb mode, but you can fully customize a multi-switch with whatever you want.
All right, so number seven is kind of fun, and that is adding frequently used emojis. Now, personally, I actually really miss the old MacBook Pro Touch Bar from like 2017 or whatever it was because I really liked being able to just quickly add emojis. And this finally brings that feature back. I personally actually hate having to manually open the Emoji menu and scroll through or search and find the different ones that I want. This one is also really easy to set up. I've got all the emojis set up in a folder, and then it's as easy as using a text action button to just quickly insert emojis. I personally find this really helpful when I'm replying to all of your comments on my YouTube videos because it's super easy for me to just quickly tap and add some more emotion to my replies. Speaking of which, make sure you leave a comment and hit the like button if you're finding these ideas helpful.
All right, so idea number eight is one of my new favorites, and that is ejecting particular USB devices. So again, because I'm constantly moving in and out of my office doing different types of work, I'm also constantly having to eject my external drives, my SD cards, because I have so much footage that I'm managing between different storage locations. But again, I use ChatGPT to set up some Apple Scripts that allow me to eject particular drives. So I've currently got two buttons set up. One is designed to eject all of my USB devices all at once, and then the other one is designed to just eject SD cards. So if I'm working at my computer and I've finished transferring some footage, for example, I can just eject my SD cards. Or if I want to leave my desk altogether and go and work in a different room, I just hit the all devices eject button, and I'm good to go.
Number nine is Spotify controls, particularly a play and pause button. I've got this on my home Stream Deck screen, and the reason I like this so much is that when I use the play pause button on my keyboard, it actually doesn't always seem to know which media source to go with. So if I've got a YouTube video open plus Spotify open, sometimes it'll play pause Spotify, sometimes it'll play pause my YouTube video, and I never know for sure which one it's going to pick. So by having the button on my Stream Deck, I know for sure it's always going to play or pause my music. This one's super easy to set up. There's a native Spotify integration plugin on the Elgato Marketplace. It also shows the album artwork on the button while it's playing, which is kind of nice, and you can even map other buttons like next or previous for even more control.
All right, so last but definitely not least, I highly recommend adding some Final Cut Pro shortcuts to your Stream Deck if you're a video editor like me, or whatever platform you're using to edit, whether it's Riverside or Premiere Pro, anything like that. You can set up heaps of different shortcuts, all the way from basic up to really advanced. Personally, I've got my Stream Deck set up so that when I open Final Cut, it automatically opens a whole bunch of different shortcuts that I frequently use. This is actually really easy to set up. It's pretty much as simple as adding a hotkey shortcut. For some more advanced controls, you can combine it with Command Post, which is what I've done, which is another free Mac app. And then from there, I've personally got it set to do a whole bunch of different things, including stabilize footage, copy and remove effects from clips, add basic titles, loop playback. You can really get super advanced, especially if you're using multi-action shortcuts for more complex edits. The sky is really the limit. I say it all the time, but if you're looking to increase your productivity when it comes to video editing, shortcuts are really the way to go. And then once you finish editing your video, to speed up your workflow even more, again, I like to use Riverside to create short-form clips. I just upload my edited video into Riverside, and then let the AI decide which parts of my long-form video are best for short-form clips. Then I just need to download them, and then I can reupload them to YouTube and Instagram.
So there you go, there's 10 ideas for automation to hopefully boost your productivity and your content creation. Let me know in the comments if you've got other suggestions. I'm really keen to continue fleshing out my Stream Deck for even more shortcuts. And make sure you check out Riverside using the link in the description if you're looking for a centralized content creation platform that lets you record, live stream, repurpose, and edit all of your content in the one place. It's a huge time saver, especially for live streamers and content creators. You can sign up for a free account using the link in the description, and then if you decide to upgrade to a subscription, you can use my code NICK20 to get a 20% discount. And then in the meantime, if you're looking for more videos on YouTube setups, then make sure you check out this video right here.