The Most Useful Mac Keyboard Shortcuts
Many functions and features in OS X El Capitan are accessed and controlled by swiping, flicking, tapping and pinching on the surface of a trackpad (or on the top of Apple's accessory Magic Mouse), as well as by pointing and clicking. But like operating systems of yesteryear, El Captian also lets you use a keyboard alone to summon a feature or function.
In fact, El Capitan contains so many "keyboard shortcuts" — combinations of key presses that invoke a command — that an Apple webpage lists hundreds of them. And if those aren't enough, you can create your own shortcuts by browsing to Apple menu > System Preferences and selecting Keyboard. Click Shortcuts, select app shortcuts and then click Add (+).
What follows here is our choice of the most useful keyboard shortcuts in El Capitan (and all OS X versions, starting with OS X 10.2 Jaguar).
Keyboard Shortcuts
Shortcuts for navigating among applications, open windows and the desktop
Command Key + Tab – Move forward to the next most recently used application in a list of open applications
Command Key + Q – Quit the frontmost application
Command Key + W – Close the frontmost window
Command Key + Spacebar – Access Spotlight for searching the Web, iCloud and your local files
F9 Key – Tile or un-tile all open windows (for quick selection and access)
F10 Key – Tile or un-tile all open windows in the currently active (frontmost) application
F11 Key – Hide or show all open windows
F12 Key – Hide or display Dashboard
Shortcuts to use within open applications and windows
Command Key + N – Create a new document in the frontmost application
Command Key + P – Display the print dialog box
Command Key + S – Saves the active document
Command Key + Shift Key + S – Display the Save As dialog box
Command Key + T – Opens a new tab in a web browser; while in other applications displays the Fonts window
Command Key + Z – Undo previous command (some applications permit multiple Undos)
Command Key + Shift Key + Z – Redo previous command (some applications permit multiple Redos)
Shortcuts for selecting and acting on selected items
Command Key + A – Selects all items in a document or window (or on the desktop if no window is open), or all characters in a text field
Command Key + B – Boldface the selected text or toggle boldfaced text on and off
Command Key + C – Copies selected item or text to the Clipboard
Command Key + E – Uses the selection for a Find
Command Key + I – Italicize the selected text or toggle Italic text on and off
Command Key + V – Paste the Clipboard contents at the location of the cursor
Command Key + X – Cuts the selected item and stores it in the Clipboard
Shortcuts for screen captures
Command Key + Shift Key + 3 – Capture the screen to a file
Command Key + Shift Key + Control Key + 3 – Capture the screen to the Clipboard
Command Key + Shift Key + 4 – Capture a selection to a file
Command Key + Shift Key + Control Key + 4 – Capture a selection to the Clipboard
Shortcuts for navigating the menu bar
Control Key + F2 – Puts the focus on the menu bar, so you can now use the following keyboard shortcuts to navigate through the menu bar menus. (Useful if your portable mouse or portable trackpad has dead batteries and won't operate.)
Left Arrow and Right Arrow – Moves from menu to menu
Return – Opens a selected menu
Up Arrow and Down Arrow – Move to menu items in the selected menu
Type the menu item's name – Jump to a menu item in the selected menu
Return – Select a menu item (within a selected menu)
Shortcuts for using Finder
Command Key + Delete – Move to trash
Up Arrow + Command + Delete – Empty trash
Up Arrow + Command Key + N – Create new folder
Up Arrow + Command Key + A – Go to Applications folder