Top 15 Keyboard Shortcuts in Mac and Windows

The keyboard shortcuts help us tremendously to perform repeated tasks faster and save us a lot of time. In every platform, default keyboard shortcuts are available; many are common across platforms. A classic example is – shortcuts for cut, copy, paste, find, etc. are the same on all platforms. On Mac, the primary key for shortcuts is ⌘ , and on Windows, the primary key for shortcuts is Ctrl. These keys, in combination with Shift, Option, Alt etc. and other alphanumeric keys, form the shortcut keys to perform various operations. The function keys F1 to F12 are also used as shortcut keys for various purposes.

Both Mac and Windows provide options to customize the default shortcut keys. While most applications adopt the system default shortcut keys, some applications may define a slightly distinct set of shortcut keys. Look for a Key-map customization option in the application and change the shortcuts as you need.

The shortcut keys listed in this article are my top picks and I hope familiarity with these shortcut keys will help you to do your work better.

Mac Top Shortcut Keys

We can change the default Mac Keyboard shortcuts from System Preferences => Keyboard => Shortcuts (tab) => Keyboard (list item)

#	Category	Shortcut	Function
1	Navigation between Windows	⌘ + Tab	Use this to switch between active applications. Hold the ⌘ key and keep pressing Tab key to switch to the desired application.
		⌘ + `	Use this to switch between the windows of an application. Hold the ⌘ key and keep pressing ` key to switch to the desired window.
2	Navigation between Tabs	⌘ + ⌥ + Left/Right Arrow	Use this to switch between tabs in a browser like Chrome and other applications that support tabs. Hold ⌘ and ⌥ keys and press the left or right arrow to navigate between tabs.
		⌃ + Tab	Hold ⌃ key and press tab or ⇧ + tab to navigate between tabs.
3	Navigate Back and Forward	⌘ + [ or ⌘ + ]	Go back to a page or go forward in a browser
		⌘ + Left/Right Arrow	Go back to a page or go forward in a browser
4	Menu Navigation	⌃ + F2	Move focus to the menubar. Use the left, right, up, and down arrow keys to navigate between menu options.
5	Open	⌘ + N	Open a New Window
		⌘ + T	Open a New Tab
		⌘ + ⇧+ T	Reopen a closed tab
		⌘ + O	Open a file
6	Close	⌘ + W	Close a Tab
		⌘ + Q	Close an Application
7	Hide	⌘ + H	Hide the active application. This is very useful when you instantly want to hide the currently visible app window.
		F11	Launch the Spotlight Search tool to search for anything on Mac
8	Select, Cut, Copy, Paste	⌘ + A	Select all text or all files
		⌘ + X	Cut selected text
		⌘ + C	Copy selected text
		⌘ + V	Paste selected text
9	Undo, Redo	⌘ + Z	Undo the last operation
		⌘ + ⇧ + Z	Redo the last operation
10	Save	⌘ + S	Save the content to the file
11	Search	⌘ + F	Find / Search
		⌘ + Space	Launch the Spotlight Search tool to search anything on Mac
12	Print	⌘ + P	Print the content of the active application that supports print
13	Screenshot	⌘ + ⇧ + 5 (or 3 or 4)	Take a screenshot with various options. Use the key 3 or 4 instead of 5 to take a screenshot of the entire visible window or a select part of the window.
14	Lock	⌃ + ⌘ + Q	Lock your Mac
15	Emoji Palette	⌃ + ⌘ + Space	Launch Emoji palette

Windows Top Shortcut Keys (Hotkeys)

The default Windows shortcut keys are not very different from Mac except that instead of ⌘, Windows uses the Ctrl key. We can change the Windows keyboard shortcuts from Start (Windows (⊞)) => Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard Center.

#	Category	Shortcut	Description
1	Navigation between Windows	Alt + Tab	Use this to switch between active applications. Hold the Alt key and keep pressing Tab key to switch to the desired application.
2	Navigation between Tabs	Ctrl + Tab	Use this to switch between tabs in a browser like Chrome and other applications that support tabs. Hold the Ctrl key and keep pressing Tab key to switch to the desired tab.
3	Open	Ctrl + N	Open a New Window
		Ctrl + T	Open a New Tab
		Ctrl + O	Open a file
4	Close	Ctrl + W	Close a Tab
		Alt + F4	Close an Application
5	Hide	Windows (⊞) + D	Minimize all Windows and show Desktop
6	Rename	F2	Rename a file
7	Select, Cut, Copy, Paste	Ctrl + A	Select all files or all text depending on the context
		Ctrl + X	Cut the selected file or text
		Ctrl + C	Copy the selected file or text
		Ctrl + V	Paste the selected file or text
8	Undo, Redo	Ctrl + Z	Undo the last operation
		Ctrl + Y	Redo the last operation
9	Save	Ctrl + S	Save the content to the disk.
10	Search	Ctrl + F	Find
11	Print	Ctrl + P	Print the content of the active application that supports print
12	Screenshot	Windows (⊞) + Print Screen	Save a Screenshot of the currently active window
13	Lock	Windows (⊞) + L	Lock the screen
		Ctrl + Alt + Del	Open the option for Lock Screen, Task Manager, etc.
14	Refresh	F5	Refresh the desktop or reload a page in the browser
15	Open Explorer	Windows (⊞) + E	Open the Windows Explorer