Keep holding the Command and Shift keys and tap the Tab key repeatedly to cycle through open Applications. Application Switcher appears with an icon for every open Application. A pop-up window provides a dictionary definition, thesaurus entry, links to Wikipedia and more for that highlighted word.Ĭommand + Shift + Tab – Hold the Command and Shift keys down and tap the Tab key. Hold the Command and Control keys down and press D. It works for almost all file types including movies and you can browse through multi-page documents.Ĭommand + Control + D – Highlight any word in a document or on the internet. This saves a huge amount of time as you can view the contents of a file without opening an Application. Tap the Spacebar and the file expands to give you a Quick Look at it’s contents. Tap the Spacebar again, and the file returns to normal. For more information read – Quit Apps… Don’t Just Close Windows

Note that this does not Quit the Application. You can search for words, phrases or numbers in most files that show text including web pages and PDFs.Ĭommand + T – Hold down the Command key and press T, to create a new Tab in Safari, Chrome or Firefox… or a new Tab in the Finder, if you are running Yosemite.Ĭommand + W – Hold the Command key down, and tap the W key to close the current active window or tab.

Try it out in Mail or iPhoto.Ĭommand + F – While reading a file, hold down the Command key, press F and a search field appears. This also works when you are opening files within an Application. Files can be documents, photos, music, etc. These keys are all located at the bottom left hand corner of your keyboard.Ĭommand + A – Select a single file within a folder. Hold down the Command key, press A and all files are selected.

Modifier keys on the Mac include: Shift, Control, Option, Command and Function. Hold the Shift key and tap the “h” key and you get an upper case “H”Īll Modifier Keys work this way. Tap the “h” key and you get a lower case “h” At this point you may be tempted to run away screaming… but you already use modifier keys every day. They’re faster than a mouse… and using them will make you wildly popular. In true Hollywood fashion… I’ve produced a sequel. The original Keystroke Shortcuts Guide, posted on October 27th, 2011, proved very popular.

Apple shortcuts cheat sheet