Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts

Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts

Jan 23

Learning to use the keyboard shortcuts will lead to a much more fulfilling browsing experience. You’ll be able to browse the web faster and more effectively. Here I’ve compiled a list of all the useful firefox keyboard shortcuts, learn these and before long you’ll forget all about the little rodent sitting next to your keyboard.

Navigation from the toolbar

The address bar shortcut should be as instinctual as breathing by now, but there’s a few more shortcuts to that top bar that you should keep in mind.

* Select location bar: Ctrl/Cmd+L or Alt+D
* Select search bar: Ctrl/Cmd+K
* Back: Backspace or Alt/Cmd+Left
* Forward: Alt/Option+Right or Shift+Backspace
* Change search engine: Ctrl/Cmd+Down (Next) +Up (Previous)

The last shortcut, used to change the search engine, was a big discovery for me. I’ve always been interested in additional search bar plugins, but it was never worth the trip to the mouse. No problem any more.

Searching pages

The find-as-you-type feature was an epiphany. While Google is great at getting you to the right web page, Firefox’s find-as-you-type feature gets you the rest of the way.

* Find as you type text: /
* Find as you type link: ‘
* Regular old find: Ctrl/Cmd+F

The link search is very useful, especially when used in conjunction with…

Opening pages

Unless you do all of your browsing in one page, these shortcuts are huge when you don’t want to go running for your mouse.

* Open link in new window: Shift+Enter
* Open link in new tab: Ctrl/Cmd+Enter
* Open address/search in new tab: Alt/Option+Enter

Used together with their respective shortcuts (address and search bar shortcuts and the find-as-you-type link shortcut), the page opening shortcuts go a long way toward mouse-less browsing.

Grab bag

The following shortcuts fall into a more general grab bag of useful shortcuts.

* Caret browsing: F7
* Refresh: Ctrl/Cmd+R or F5
* Refresh (override cache): Ctrl/Cmd+F5 or Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+R
* Switch tabs: Ctrl/Cmd+Tab
* Select tab (1-9): Ctrl/Cmd+[1-9]
* Compose email: Ctrl/Cmd+M

The preceding shortcuts are of mostly obvious usefulness. Switching tabs and reloading pages are must-have shortcuts for any mouse-eschewing Firefox-er. A less-known feature, Caret browsing, inserts a cursor into the text of the page and is very useful for highlighting and copying text.

So you’re a web writer, huh?

If you’ve recently turned Firefox into a full-fledged web writer, then there are a couple more useful shortcuts that you need to know.

* Spellcheck (with Spellbound extension): Ctrl+Shift+F7
* Save Entry (with Scribe extension): Ctrl+S

Keyconfig extension

Finally, if you haven’t totally satisfied your shortcut cravings, you can install the Keyconfig extension. Keyconfig allows you to define Firefox shortcuts to your hearts content.

Download Keyconfig

Some of the shortcuts above may be old hat, while others may be news to you. I’ve excluded a lot of the more obvious universal shortcuts (like copy and paste), but I tried to include everything you need to browse just as you would with a mouse in hand. Still not enough? You might want to check out the full list of Firefox keyboard shortcuts.