Standard Browser Keyboard Shortcuts

Jeff Atwood

Jeff Atwood

— 2 min read — Comments

All modern browsers have extensive keyboard shortcuts:

I tested every shortcut, and here's my list of keyboard shortcuts that work in all browsers – or, for the rare keyboard shortcuts I found especially useful, those that work in at least two of the above browsers.

Standard toolbar buttons

Alt+←, or Backspace
Back

Alt+→, or Shift+Backspace
Forward

F5
Reload

Ctrl+F5
Force Reload (no cache)

Esc
Stop

Alt+Home
Homepage

Ctrl+N
New browser window

Address Bar

Alt+D, or Ctrl+L, or F6
Set focus to Address Bar

Ctrl+Enter
Add "www." and ".com" prefix to Address Bar

Alt+Enter
Open Address Bar location in a new tab

Tabs

Ctrl+1…8
Switch to nth tab

Ctrl+9
Switch to last tab

Ctrl+Tab, or Ctrl+Page Up
Switch to next tab

Ctrl+Shift+Tab, or Ctrl+Page Down
Switch to previous tab

Ctrl+W, or Middle Click tab, or Ctrl+F4
Close current tab

Ctrl+T
Open new tab in the foreground

Ctrl+Shift+T
Reopen last closed tab

Ctrl+Left Click, or Middle Click
Open clicked link in a new background tab

Shift+Left Click
Open clicked link in a new browser window

Ctrl+Shift+Left Click
Open clicked link in a new tab, and set focus to it

Reading

Space
Scroll down

Shift+Space
Scroll up

Home
Go to top of page

End
Go to bottom of page

F11
Toggle full page mode

Ctrl++, or Ctrl+Mousewheel down
Zoom page larger

Ctrl+-, or Ctrl+Mousewheel up
Zoom page smaller

Ctrl+0
Set to default zoom

Bookmarks

Ctrl+D
Add current site to bookmarks

Ctrl+H
Open browsing history

Ctrl+J
Open download history

Search

Ctrl+E, or Ctrl+K
Set focus to search box

Alt+Enter
Perform search in new tab

F3, or Ctrl+F
In-page search

F3
Scroll to next in-page search item

Ctrl+F3
Scroll to previous in-page search item

Developer

Ctrl+U
View source of current page

F12
Developer tools

Ctrl+Shift+Del
Delete browsing history

While it's not a keyboard shortcut per se, also note that left-click-and-hold on the forward and back buttons will show a list of the last (n) pages to select from, if you want to go forward or back more than a single page at once. This comes in handy at least once a week for me.

It's good to see browser developers standardizing on at least a few common keyboard shortcuts rather than making up their own.

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