By learning keyboard shortcuts you can perform actions more quickly, enabling seamless navigation across your tabs and applications. Windows and Mac both have their own click-and-key combinations for many of the same functions.

Windows Keyboard Shortcuts:

The following shortcuts are basic utilities on your computer for moving selected objects, texts or files across different folders and applications. These keys are very helpful for reducing time spent in cluttered menus, trying to copy and paste a single link or picture across folders, or undoing an action that is a mistake.

• Copy: Ctrl + C
• Cut: Ctrl + X
• Paste: Ctrl + V
• Undo: Ctrl + Z
• Redo: Ctrl + Y
• Select all items: Ctrl + A

The Clipboard is a tool used to see your history of copied items, allowing you to recopy past selections without having to navigate back to the window you copied them from. This function needs to be enabled before it tracks selections, open it and do so with the following shortcut:

• Open Clipboard: Windows logo key + V
  
  Note: The Windows logo key is located on the bottom left side of your keyboard, next to the Alt key.

Task View is a great desktop and application organizing tool built into Windows. Review our Task View tutorial Tech Tips for more information.

• Open Task View: Windows logo key + Tab
  
  

Alternating between open applications is made seamless with the following shortcut:

• Switch between open applications: Alt + Tab

The Quick Link menu is the easiest way to get to various parts of your computer’s settings and files as well as functions such as signing out, network connections and File Explorer.

• Open the Quick Link menu: Windows logo key + X
  
  

A quick way to Lock your PC is through the hotkey:

• Lock your PC: Windows logo key + L

Mac Keyboard Shortcuts:

Mac has all the same functions that Windows does in very similar combinations. Mac computers use Command (or Cmd) instead of the Ctrl key and Option instead of Alt. If you are a Mac user with a Windows-style keyboard, you can use these keys interchangeably.

Just as in Windows, the following shortcuts are basic utilities on your Mac for moving selected objects, texts, or files across different folders and applications. These keys are very helpful for reducing time spent in cluttered menus, making copying and pasting faster, or undoing an action that is a mistake.

• Copy: Cmd + C
• Cut: Cmd + X
• Paste: Cmd + V
• Undo: Cmd + Z
• Redo: Cmd + Shift + Z
• Select all items: Ctrl + A

Finding a specific word or item in a document, tab or file is done by opening a Find window. You can cycle through all occurrences of the desired item too.

• Open Find: Cmd + F
• Next Find occurrence: Cmd + G

It is much faster to use the Minimize front window hotkey to minimize many open applications than to minimize each by clicking manually.

• Minimize front window: Cmd + M

Alternating between open applications is made seamless with the following shortcut:

• Switch to the next most recently used app: Cmd + tab

Do you have a favorite keyboard shortcut we didn’t mention? We’d love to hear!