I recently discovered the joy of using keyboard shortcuts in Mac OS. It really makes things easier especially speeding up Mac OS usage.I sorted them by how often they are used. I will update this blog post if I find any new favorite shortcuts.
Legend
⌃ Control
⌥ Option
⌘ Command
⇧ Shift
⇥ Tab
Common Shortcuts
Command – Tab : this is great to quickly switch to the next most recently used app among opened apps
Command – Q : Quit the current App
Command – W : Close the front window. Whatever front window, in finder or browser. This shortcut also close Safari tab
Command – T : Open a new tab
Option – Command – ESC : Force Quit an App. I usually use this to check what apps are open especially before I shut down my Mac. Since I almost never get apps freezes so I almost never have to force quit apps.
Command – H : Hide the front app. I usually use this to hide the frontmost app window after I use it but don’t want to close it because I might come back to it at some point.
Option – Command – H : This is the opposite of Command- H. This command hides all apps except the front one (the one we are working on).
Control – Command – F : Sometimes I want a wide window view so I can see everything, for example Safari – full URL address in history. This shortcut is to use or stop using the app in full screen. Not all apps use this, but it works great in Safari browser.
Command – C : Copy the selected item to the Clipboard.
Command – V : Paste the last copied item of the Clipboard into an app
Shift – Option – Command -V : Paste the last copied item of the Clipboard without any formatting attached
Command – Z : undo the previous command
Shift – Command – A : Open the Application window
Option – Command – L : Open the Downloads folder
Shift – Command – O : Open the Documents folder
Command – E : Eject the selected disk or volume
Command – Delete : Move the selected item to the Trash
Shift – Command – Delete : Empty the trash
Command – comma (,) : Open settings for the front app
Command – I : show the Get Info window for a selected file
Option – Command – D : show or hide the dock
Command – O : Open the selected item (files or folders). When I’m lazy using a Mouse double click, I’m using this command
Command – Y / Space-bar : Use Quick Look to preview the selected files.
Option key while double-clicking : open an item in a separate window then close the original window. It’s useful to reduce window opened on Mac
Command key while dragging to another volume : Cannot find Move command? use keyboard shortcuts instead, move the dragged item to the other volume
Command – 4 : This is useful when I need to see photos in a Finder window, view the items in a gallery. Use number 1,2,3 when you switch from gallery to icons, list, columns
Option ↑ or Option ↓ : Quickly move up to the top or to the bottom of the page
Control ↑ or Control ↓ : Quickly switch on to the Mission Control and off to desktop
Command – F : Find items or open a Find window
Command – G : Find next of the item previously found
Option key and pressing Shut Down on the Apple menu : Shut Down Mac immediately and complete it without a confirmation dialog
Control – Command – Q : Immediately lock the screen.
Shift – Option – Command – Q : Log out immediately without confirming Mac OS user account
Safari
Command – R : Reload the webpage
Shift – Command – T : restore last closed tab (or closed tabs) in Safari. This shortcut is great when used when opening safari which previously exited with several tabs open when exiting and those tabs will be restored.
Option – Command -> or Option – Command <- : I’m using this shortcut to move or navigate between tabs in Safari.
Command – L : The fastest way to go to the URL locator field in Safari so we can make a search or navigate to a Website
J, K, L : I’m using three letters for youtube on Safari. J for playing backwards, K for pause or play, L for playing forwards. You can speed up 2x, 5x, 10x, 30x and 60x by pushing J or K a couple of times
Command – Y : It opens History in Safari
Word Processing
Command – S : Save the current document
Command – B : make selected texts Bold
Command – I : make selected texts Italic
Command – U : make selected texts Underline
Control – Command – Space bar : Emoji window where we can choose Emoji and other symbols
Emergency
Control – Option – Command – Power button : this immediately force shutdwon Mac so use only when emergency because it potentially causing unsaved changes in open documents to be lost