In the Shortcuts system settings we specify the menu title and the shortcut we want to use. The menu item we are adding a keyboard shortcut to is called Export as PDF… Click on All Applications to view a list of applications on this computer and choose the one you want.įor this example, in the Mail app, we are going to add a Keyboard Shortcut that will create a PDF from the selected email. Moving to App Shortcuts, users will be able to add keyboard shortcuts to menu items that don’t have shortcuts yet. To change the keys used for the shortcut, click on the key combination and type a new combination. These existing keyboard shortcuts can be turned on or off by clicking on the checkmark next to each. Each activates a different functionality of the Screen Shot app.

In the Screenshots section, there are 5 default keyboard shortcuts. For the purpose of this post, we will look first at Screenshots. There are seven categories of shortcuts listed on the left hand side of the window. Using these symbols, if you see that the keyboard shortcut for creating a new folder in Finder is ⌘ ⇧ N, you know to press the modifier keys Command and Shift along with the letter N and you will create a new folder. The keys that the symbols refer to are as follows and are referred to as modifier keys. To the right of any particular menu item, there will be a listing of the keyboard shortcut equivalent if one exists. To see which keyboard shortcuts are available, click on a menu at the top of the screen. For Apple’s description of this process, see this document about Keyboard Shortcuts or this one about the Modifier Keys.

Users can customize both the key combinations, and also the commands they perform. Not all commands are set up by default with corresponding keyboard shortcuts. Cut, copy, paste, take a screenshot, quit, create new, for example.įor people who have trouble directing a mouse or a trackpad, or difficulty seeing or controlling the cursor, keyboard shortcuts are also very useful. Keyboard shortcuts are especially useful for actions that we perform often. They are keys that you press instead of choosing a menu item or clicking on a button. Have you ever used Command and Q to quit a program, or Command and C to copy some content? Those are keyboard shortcuts. Read on to learn more about changing keyboard shortcuts on a Mac. Keyboard shortcuts are very useful, but sometimes they don’t do exactly what you want.

Macos keyboard shortcuts