Keyboard shortcuts for Chrome on a Mac, and their limits

The keyboard shortcuts for Chrome on a Mac that cover most of a working day are ⌘ + t for a new tab, ⌘ + w to close it, ⌘ + Shift + t to bring closed tabs back, ⌘ + 1 to ⌘ + 8 to jump to a tab by position, ⌘ + 9 for the last tab, ⌘ + Option + Right or Left arrow to move between tabs, and ⌘ + l to jump to the address bar. Google publishes the full list in its Chrome help, and the tables below follow it as it reads on 18 October 2026. What the published lists leave out is just as useful: Chrome on macOS has no screen for changing its own shortcuts, and there are a few jumps that no Chrome key can make. Both are covered after the tables, with the exact settings that fill the gaps.

The shortcuts worth learning first

These come from Google's page of Chrome shortcuts, Mac section (Chrome keyboard shortcuts). Learning these ten removes most trips to the mouse.

Action	Shortcut
New tab, and jump to it	⌘ + t
Close the current tab	⌘ + w
Reopen closed tabs in the order they were closed	⌘ + Shift + t
Next tab / previous tab	⌘ + Option + Right arrow / Left arrow
Jump to tab 1 to 8	⌘ + 1 to ⌘ + 8
Jump to the last tab	⌘ + 9
Jump to the address bar	⌘ + l
Find on the page	⌘ + f
Back / forward in this tab	⌘ + [ / ⌘ + ]
Reload, ignoring the cache	⌘ + Shift + r

Two details are easy to miss. ⌘ + 9 always goes to the last tab, not the ninth, so it stays useful when there are thirty tabs open. And ⌘ + Shift + t walks back through closed tabs one at a time, in order, so pressing it four times restores the last four closed tabs, not just the most recent.

Window, tab and browser shortcuts

The next group handles windows and Chrome's own pages. Most of these replace a menu that is two clicks deep.

Action	Shortcut
New window	⌘ + n
New Incognito window	⌘ + Shift + n
Close the current window	⌘ + Shift + w
Minimise the window	⌘ + m
Hide Chrome	⌘ + h
Quit Chrome	⌘ + q
Open split view in the active tab	⌘ + Option + n
Show or hide the Bookmarks Bar	⌘ + Shift + b
Bookmark Manager	⌘ + Option + b
Settings in a new tab	⌘ + ,
History in a new tab	⌘ + y
Downloads in a new tab	⌘ + Shift + j
Delete browsing data	⌘ + Shift + Delete
Switch profile, guest, or payment and password info	⌘ + Shift + m

The split view entry is worth knowing. It puts two pages side by side inside one tab, which replaces the old habit of dragging a tab out into a second window and resizing both.

⌘ + Shift + m is the only key Chrome offers for profiles. It opens the menu where another profile can be chosen, but there is no key that goes straight to a named profile.

Page, address bar and developer shortcuts

These work on whatever page is open.

Action	Shortcut
Bookmark the current page	⌘ + d
Bookmark all open tabs into a new folder	⌘ + Shift + d
Zoom in / out / reset	⌘ and + / ⌘ and - / ⌘ + 0
Print	⌘ + p
Save the page	⌘ + s
Next / previous match in Find	⌘ + g / ⌘ + Shift + g
Open a web address in a new background tab	type the address, then ⌘ + Return
Open a link in a new background tab	⌘ + click the link
Open a link in a new tab and switch to it	⌘ + Shift + click the link
Open Developer Tools	⌘ + Option + i
Open the JavaScript Console	⌘ + Option + j
View page source	⌘ + Option + u

Developer Tools has its own, much longer set of keys for each panel, published separately in the DevTools documentation. Those only apply while DevTools is focused and are a different list from the browser shortcuts above.

Google's list also includes a small set of keys for text fields, which matter in web apps where most of the day is spent typing into a form or a chat box. Option + Left arrow moves the cursor to the start of the previous word, Option + Right arrow moves to the end of the next word, and Option + Delete removes the previous word. Space scrolls a page down by one screen and Shift + Space scrolls back up, but only while the cursor is not inside a text field. Inside a field, Space simply types a space, which is why the same key seems to work on one page and not on another.

One setting on the Mac side changes how many of these work. Google's help notes that some navigation options need Full Keyboard Access turned on in macOS. Without it, pressing Tab on a page skips over many buttons and only moves between text fields.

Chrome on a Mac cannot change its own shortcuts

This is the gap the published lists do not mention. Google's shortcut help describes no way to remap Chrome's built-in keys on macOS, and Chrome's settings offer no screen for it. Some other Chromium browsers do. Opera's help, for example, describes a Configure shortcuts button under Settings, Advanced, Browser, where most browsing actions can be given a new key (Opera shortcuts). Chrome has nothing equivalent.

What a Mac offers instead is a system level feature that works for any app, Chrome included. Apple documents it as follows (Create keyboard shortcuts for apps on Mac):

1. Open the Apple menu, choose System Settings, click Keyboard in the sidebar, then click Keyboard Shortcuts.
2. Select App Shortcuts on the left and click the add button.
3. In the Application pop-up menu, choose Google Chrome.
4. In Menu title, type the menu command exactly as it appears in Chrome's menu bar. For a command inside a submenu, separate the levels with -> (for example, Tab->Pin Tab). For an ellipsis, type three periods.
5. Click in Keyboard shortcut, press the new key combination, then click Done.

Apple states two limits that decide what this can do. A shortcut can only be attached to a command that exists in the app's menus, not to a general task. And if the combination is already used by another command, the new shortcut will not work until one of them is changed.

In practice that makes it good for three things in Chrome: giving a key to a menu command that has none, moving a key that clashes with another app, and making a command that sits in a submenu reachable without the mouse. The menu title has to match letter for letter, so copy it from the menu bar rather than typing it from memory.

Extension shortcuts live in a separate place

Extensions can define their own keys, and those are managed at a page inside Chrome rather than in Settings. Typing chrome://extensions/shortcuts into the address bar opens it.

Chrome's extension documentation explains how this page works (chrome.commands). An extension can suggest at most four keyboard shortcuts. Any of its other commands can be given a key by hand on the shortcuts page. By default an extension's shortcuts only work while Chrome is focused. An extension can mark a command as global so it works even when another app is in front, and for those the suggested keys are limited to Ctrl + Shift + 0 to 9 so they do not override other apps. On the shortcuts page, the scope for each command can be switched between Chrome and Global.

That last option is useful and easy to overlook. A password manager or a capture tool set to Global answers from any app, which saves the step of switching to Chrome first.

Two things to check when an extension key does nothing. First, whether another app already uses the same combination system wide. Second, whether the extension is installed in the profile that is open, because extensions are installed per profile and a key that works in one Chrome window can do nothing in another.

The jumps no Chrome key can make

Even with every key above learned and a few added through App Shortcuts, some moves stay slow, and they are usually the ones made most often.

Going to a specific app by name. ⌘ + 1 to ⌘ + 8 depend on position. Open a new tab in front of the mail tab and its number changes. There is no key for "go to the mail tab" wherever it is.

Going to a specific window. macOS provides ⌘ + Grave accent (the key above Tab) to cycle through the windows of the front app, and ⌘ + Tab to switch between apps, as listed in Apple's Mac keyboard shortcuts. With three Chrome windows open, reaching a particular one means cycling through the others, since all of them belong to the same app.

Going to a specific profile. As noted above, ⌘ + Shift + m opens the profile menu, and from there the right profile is picked by hand.

Getting to Chrome from somewhere else. Chrome itself has no global key to bring a given tab forward from another app. Only extension commands marked Global can respond while Chrome is in the background.

The common thread is that Chrome's keys address tabs by position and windows by order. People who live in five or six web apps a day think of them by name, and that mismatch is where the keystrokes add up.

A setup that closes most of the gap

A few changes, done once, get close to name based switching inside Chrome.

Pin the apps used all day, in a fixed order. Pinned tabs stay at the left of the tab strip, so the first few positions stop moving. If mail is always pinned first and the calendar second, ⌘ + 1 and ⌘ + 2 become reliable names.

Keep one window per context. With work in one window and everything else in another, ⌘ + Grave accent has only two places to go.

Give missing commands a key through App Shortcuts. Any Chrome menu command used daily that has no key is a candidate.

Set the one or two extensions that matter to Global. That gives a way into a tool from any app.

Some people stop here. Others find that the set of web apps they use all day has outgrown positions and windows. A different kind of tool, an app aggregation browser for macOS, keeps each web app in its own space and gives each a fixed key: ⌘ + 1 to 9 open the app in that slot whatever tabs are open, ⌘ + Option + Up and Down move between apps, a command palette on ⌘ + K jumps to any app, tab or workspace by typing its name, and a global hotkey brings the whole window forward from anywhere. The full key list and the other tools are on the Features page, and how apps are grouped is described under Workspaces.

What to change first

Learn ⌘ + 9, ⌘ + Shift + t and ⌘ + l this week, pin the three web apps used most so their numbers stop moving, and add one App Shortcut for the Chrome menu command reached for most often. If switching between web apps still means hunting through tabs after that, look at how SpaceDeck gives each app its own key.