It’s Friday and you’ve got a whole night of blissful net-surfing ahead of you – except the worst has happened.
Your cursor has gone on strike. No amount of frantic finger-swiping on your touchpad or mouse-rattling will get the white arrow to budge. The service centres are closed, your in-house expert has gone to bed and all you can do is stare at the screen in despair.
Never fear! We’re here to save your browsing (as long as your keyboard is working!). These shortcuts all assume you already have a browser window open and are divided between Windows and Mac unless specified.
Address Bar
| Windows | Mac | |
| Selecting the address bar | Ctrl + L | ⌘ (Command) + L |
| Ctrl + E (selects the bar and opens the search box) | ||
| Adding ‘www’ and ‘.com’ to your text in the address bar | Type the name of your site, ie time, then Ctrl + Enter to make it www.time.com. |
On The Webpage
| Windows | Mac | |
| Moving between selectable options | Tab to move forward, Alt + Tab to go backwards | |
| Selecting an option | Enter | |
| Refreshing the page | F5 | ⌘ + R |
| Stopping the page from refreshing | Escape | ⌘ + . |
| Scrolling up and down | Up and Down arrow keys Page Up and Page Down keys |
Holding down the ⌘ key while pressing either the Up and Down arrow keys |
| Zooming in or out | Ctrl and + or Ctrl and – | ⌘ and + or ⌘ and – |
Navigation
| Windows | Mac | |
| Moving between pages | Alt + Left Arrow to go back a page and Alt + Right Arrow to go forwards | |
| Moving between tabs | Ctrl + Tab to go forwards and Ctrl + Shift + Tab to go backwards | |
| Closing the current tab | Ctrl + F4 | |
| Reopening the last closed tab | Ctrl + Shift + T | ⌘ + Shift + T |
| Opening your current website in a new tab | Alt + Enter | |
| Quickly closing the browser and all tabs | Ctrl + Shift + W | ⌘ + Shift + W |
| Opening the homepage | Alt + Home | ⌘ + Home |
| Opening a new tab | Ctrl + T | ⌘ + T |
| Opening a new screen | Ctrl + N |
Other Useful Shortcuts
| Windows | Mac | |
| Displaying the History menu | Ctrl + H | ⌘ + Option + 2 |
| Displaying the Downloads list | Ctrl + J | ⌘ + Option + L |
| Finding text on the page | Ctrl + F | ⌘ + F |
| Clearing the browsing history | Ctrl + Shift + Delete | |
| Printing the webpage | Ctrl + P | ⌘ + P |
| Opening a list of recently visited sites | Hold down the Back button until you see the list | |
| Switching between active applications | Alt + Tab | ⌘ + Tab |
