Mac computers and laptops have a number of keyboard shortcuts that can help you navigate the computer with ease. These are some of our favorites.
As a computing ecosystem, the Mac has always sided with functional simplicity while the Windows platform has believed in versatility. But that doesn’t mean the Macs are short on shortcuts. On the contrary, some of the most popular Windows shortcuts find their equivalent on an Apple computer, as well.
I recently switched to a Mac after being a Windows user for my entire life, and it came as a huge relief that I didn’t have to memorize a fresh dossier of shortcuts. Plus, most of the core shortcuts that were a daily part of my PC usage work on my Mac, albeit in a slightly modified form.
To put it simply, there isn’t much of a learning curve, and these commands will help tone down your reliance on the mouse or trackpad for even the most basic tasks. Another low-key benefit is that most of them work just fine for an iPad as well, so you can breeze past them on a Magic Keyboard, as well.
Mac trackpad gestures are downright amazing, but stepping your palm away from the keyboard to perform a three-finger swipe up or sideswipe gesture to switch tasks is quite a hassle. I love that the gestures work flawlessly, but I prefer cycling between my active windows without having to lift my fingers from the keyboard deck.
On a Mac, you can do just that with a Command + Tab shortcut. If you hit the Command + Tab keys at the same time, you will switch back to the last app window you were working with. But if you want to jump between more than two apps running in the background, just hold the Command key and keep pressing the Tab button until you land on the desired app.
While doing this, you will see a small app bar in the middle of the screen. The foreground app will appear with a grey highlight around its icon, letting you know that releasing the Tab key will open that particular app. Another handy Tab shortcut that will give you multitasking superpowers is Control + Tab. Instead of app windows, this one lets you cycle between tabs of an app. Of course, it works for web browsers, and I absolutely love it.
