Essential Mac keyboard shortcuts and key combinations – Macworld UK

Keyboard shortcuts are a brilliant time-saver; it's much easier to tap two or three keys at once than to go hunting through nested menus. But shortcuts depend on knowledge and muscle memory. You need to put in the time to learn them before you can benefit in the long run.

That's why we're here. This guide to the essential keyboard shortcuts for Mac users covers the most useful hotkey combinations that will save you time and stress.

You will find you need key combinations for a variety of reasons. In this article we will cover the key combinations for saving, copying and pasting, printing, closing a window, closing or hiding an app, and lots more. We'll also cover key combination you can use when booting or starting up a Mac. (If you are looking for the key combination to type characters like $@# read this).

The three most important keys on your Mac can be found to the left and right of the spacebar (for right- and left-handed use). Unfortunately these keys seem to cause more confusion than any others. So our shortcuts guide will begin by clearing up the mystery, and explaining what you can do with Fn, Ctrl, Alt and Cmd.

And if you're using a Mac keyboard with aPC, you'll probably need a bit of extra help.Have a look at How to use a Mac keyboard in Windows.

There is a great deal of confusion over what Apple refers to as the Option key. If you're using a UK keyboard, chances are this is called the Alt key so it's no wonder most people don't know where it is.

The Alt (aka Option) key can be found between Control and Command. It has an icon that looks like a slope and a dip with a line above it.

Chances are the first time you hear mention of Option/Alt you are following a tutorial and trying to fix something on your Mac. The Alt/Option key is the one you use if you wish to select a boot partition when starting the computer, you also press it when typing certain characters on your keyboard, such as # (Alt-3) or (Alt-4).

Here's an overview of the hidden characters that you can type using Alt (the keys might be a bit different if you aren't using a UK keyboard). We have a separate guide to how to type , #, @, and more special characters on a Mac here.

The Option key also enables you to enable the Save As option in Mac apps. Just press it when you click on the File menu and you'll see the new options.

You may be wondering whether you can use the Alt key, along with Ctrl and Delete, to shut down an unresponsive Mac - the famour Ctrl-Alt-Delete combo from the Windows PC. Force-quitting on a Mac is slightly different to on a PC: here's how to Force Quit on a Mac.

You can also use Alt/Option to do the following:

If you thought that the jumbling of Alt and Option was baffling, there's even more opportunity for confusion when it comes to the Command key. The Command key (cmd) has a legacy that leads to confusion - many older Mac users will refer to it as the Apple key, because in the past there used to be an Apple logo on it, but this logo stopped appearing a while ago when if was decided that there were a few too many Apple logos on Apple products.

The logo you will still find on this key looks like a squiggly square, or a four petalled flower. It was designed by Susan Kare for the original iMac (and based on the Scandinavian icon for place of interest).

The Command (cmd) key works in a similar way to the Control key on a PC. On a Mac you use the Command key where on a PC you would use Control (or Ctrl).

If you were wondering why Ctrl-B didn't make your text bold, chances are you were previously a PC user and didn't realise that Command is the new Control. You might find this useful: How to move from PC to Mac: Complete guide to switching to a Mac from a PC.

Here are a few of the key combinations that use Command:

There are even more shortcuts available if you add another key, such as Shift:

In the Finder you could try the following:

With the Command key doing the job on Mac that the Control key does on PC, you may be wondering why there's also aControl key on a Mac keyboard.

The most common use of Control is to mimic theright-click on a mouse or when using the mouse pad (since some Apple mice don't have the right click option).

There are many more uses for Control when used with other key combinations, for example:

You can also use the Control key to add a document or folder to the Dock. Go to the Finder and select the item you wish to add to the Dock (or search for it using Spotlight: Cmd-Space, or select it on your Desktop). Then press Control-Shift-Command-T.

There are a few other Apple specific keys(depending on your keyboard):

You can set other F keys to do Mission Control actions. Go to System Preferences > Mission Control and add unused F keys to do functions such as Show Desktop or Dashboard.

There are a few times where keyboard combinations enable you to troubleshoot problems with your Mac. For example, if you want to start your Mac in Safe Mode you need to know which key combination you need (press and hold the Shift key during start up - more here). Similarly, to access the Recovery mode you usually need to hold down hold cmd+R at start up - more here - there are actually multiple key combinations you can use).

Below we'll run through a few times when key combinations can be handy.