My Favorite Google Chrome Shortcuts for Mac

January 15, 2023

This is a collection of shortcuts and tricks I’ve gathered over the years. I use most of these on a daily basis to speed up my workflow.

Hand-drawn logos of Apple’s Finder and Google Chrome together with the symbols for Command, Shift and Alt

Default shortcuts

Most of these work in Brave as well.

  • Select URL Command L

  • New tab Cmd T

  • Go to the next tab Ctrl Tab

  • Go to the previous tab Ctrl Shift Tab

  • Go back / forward Cmd [ / ]

  • Refresh page Cmd R

  • Bookmark page Cmd D

  • Go to a specific tab Cmd 1 / 2 / n based on the position of the tab

  • Close tab Cmd W

  • Search open tabs Cmd Shift A

  • Search Help Menu Cmd Shift /

  • Chrome Settings Cmd ,

Custom shortcuts

These I shortcuts for actions I use all the time and I wish they came in Chrome by default. Feel free to use whichever keyboard combination you prefer. These are the ones I use:

  • Pin tab Ctrl Option Cmd P

  • Duplicate tab Ctrl Option Cmd D

  • Close Other Tabs Ctrl Option Cmd X

Creating Custom Shortcuts on MacOS

To create custom App shortcuts on macOS:

  1. Go to System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > App Shortcuts

  2. Hit the + button

  3. Select Google Chrome

  4. In the Menu Title field, type the exact name of the function you’re creating the shortcut for e.g. Pin Tab

  5. In the Keyboard Shortcut field, press the keyboard combination that you’d like to assign

Pro tip: You can find the exact name of a function using the Search Help menu. Press Cmd Shift / or click in Help in the menu bar and search by the function name.

Keep in mind, as Chrome updates, the exact names, and capitalization of functions may change. If your custom shortcuts stop working, see if you need to update their names.

Site-specific shortcuts

These are Google apps that I use so frequently, I consider them part of Chrome.

Google Calendar

  1. Book a meeting with a colleague Shift =

  2. View by day D

  3. View by week W

  4. View by month M

  5. View by year Y

  6. Focus on today T

  7. Next day N

  8. Previous day P

  9. New event C

Gmail

  1. New email C

  2. Go to Inbox G and then I

  3. Go to All Mail G and then A

  4. Move through emails ↑ ↓

  5. Select email X

  6. Archive selected or open email E

  7. Delete selected email Shift #

  8. Reply to open email R

  9. Go to the next email on an open email J

  10. Go to preview email on an open email K

  11. Label an open or selected email L

  12. Go to Spam. In the main view, press ← and then navigate with ↓

  13. Mark open or selected email as Spam Shift !

  14. Back to the main view from an open email Cmd [

Conclusion

I’ll try to update this list as new shortcuts become part of my Google Chrome workflow.

If you have any other tricks or shortcuts, I’d love to hear about them. Sent me a message at [email protected].