The 18 Chrome keyboard shortcuts you should use every day

Chrome tabs are an excellent way to multitask, but they aren't technically apps—and that means you can't fly between them with that classic Windows Alt+Tab shortcut or any other operating system's equivalent. Instead, you have to click those little tabs at the top of Chrome with your mouse to move from one tab to another—or so it might seem.

As usual, keyboard shortcuts make things faster. These are the Chrome keyboard shortcuts you should be using every day, to navigate between tabs and so much more.

Note: The shortcuts I'm about to go over work in all the big web browsers and many of the smaller ones, too. Whether you're using Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Brave, Opera, or anything else, they'll get the job done. 

Chrome keyboard shortcuts cheat sheet

How to switch tabs on Chrome with a keyboard shortcut

Switch to the next tab

To quickly move to the next browser tab on the right within any window, press Ctrl + Tab. You can then hold down the Ctrl key and keep tapping the Tab key to keep moving to the next tab in the list, too.

It's the same shortcut on Windows and Mac—just that the key says control on a Mac, not Ctrl.

Switch to the previous tab

Want to move to the tab on the left of your current focus? You don't have to Ctrl + Tab through every last tab in your current browser window until it comes around again. Instead, press Ctrl + Shift + Tab once to toggle over one spot to the left.

(By the way, this little Shift key trick works with Alt + Tab on Windows and equivalents on other browsers: if you press Alt + Shift + Tab, you'll be able to toggle between your open apps in the opposite order from the usual direction.)

Switch to a specific tab

When you want to jump to a specific tab with a browser window, press the Ctrl key and a number key.

For example, if you press Ctrl + 1, your browser will activate the left-most tab in your browser window. If you press Ctrl + 2, your browser will activate the second tab from the left. And so on.

On a Mac—it's command + the number.

(A similar trick works with the Windows taskbar, too: you can press Windows + 1 to activate the left-most application icon, Windows + 2 to activate the second application icon from the left, and so on from there.)

Move the current tab to the left

You probably know you can drag and drop Chrome tabs to reorder them. But you can also do that with a keyboard shortcut.

To move the current tab to the left, press Ctrl + Shift + Page Up. Hold Ctrl + Shift and keep tapping Page Up to keep moving it to the left.

On some more compact keyboards—especially laptop keyboards—the Page Up and Page Down keys may be combined with another key. In that case, you may have to press Ctrl + Shift + Fn + Page Up instead.

On a Mac, since there aren't any Page Up / Page Down keys, it'll be control + shift + fn + up arrow / down arrow.

This is especially helpful if you open a new tab with Ctrl + N and immediately want that tab somewhere else without reaching for your mouse.

How to open and close tabs on Chrome with a keyboard shortcut

Open a new tab

Time to open a new browser tab? Press Ctrl + T on Windows or command + T on Mac while Chrome is active.

The browser will open the tab with the location bar already in focus, so you can immediately start typing a web address or search term and then just press Enter or return to get started.

If you'd like a whole new browser window instead of just a tab, press Ctrl + N or command + N  instead.

Close the current tab

When you're ready to close your current tab, there's no need to click that tiny little "x" on the tab bar. Instead, press Ctrl + W on Windows or command + W on Mac.

To close multiple tabs, hold the Ctrl or command key, and keep tapping W.

Reopen a tab

To get the last tab you closed back on Windows, press Ctrl + Shift + Tab. You can also use this shortcut multiple times to keep reopening closed tabs—just hold Ctrl + Shift and keep tapping Tab.

On Mac, it's different: command + shift + T.

Open a link in a new tab

If you find a link you want to open but aren't ready to look at it, you can open a link in a new tab by clicking Ctrl + click on Windows or command + click on Mac. If you want to open the link and switch to that new tab, add Shift to it: Ctrl + Shift + click or command + shift + click. 

And you can open the link in a completely new window with Shift + click.

How to navigate through web pages on Chrome with a keyboard shortcut

Go to the previous or next web page

To mimic clicking the back button on Chrome, type Alt + ← or command + [ on Mac. And same goes in the other direction: to go forward to the next web page, hit Alt + → or command + ].

Scroll down or up

This one's my favorite—it's so often overlooked when reading through web pages. All you have to do to scroll on Chrome is press Page Down or Page Up on Windows or space or shift + space on a Mac (even the up and down arrows work). So simple.

Tab your way through Chrome

Of course, you can do all of this with your mouse. But Chrome keyboard shortcuts can help you do things much faster and without losing your flow. And this is just the tip of the shortcut iceberg. I'd recommend familiarizing yourself with some fascinating text editing shortcuts that'll help you fly through documents and emails too.

Related reading:

• 10 hidden Office shortcuts for Windows

• How to type an em dash symbol on a Mac or Windows

• The Gmail shortcuts you should actually be using

• How to turn any website into an app

• How to split screen in Chrome