Entering URLs
To go to http://www.google.com, for example, press Ctrl+L, type "google," and then press Ctrl+Enter.
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Location Bar | Ctrl+L |
| Automatic .com Address | Ctrl+Enter |
| Automatic .net Address | Shift+Enter |
| Automatic .org Address | Ctrl+Shift+Enter |
Basic Navigation
You can access each of the navigation toolbar commands using keyboard shortcuts. They are listed below in the order in which they appear on the toolbar.
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Previous Page | Alt+Left |
| Next Page | Alt+Right |
| Refresh Page | Ctrl+R |
| Home | Alt+Home |
| Stop | Esc |
| Location Bar | Ctrl+L |
| Bookmark Current Page | Ctrl+D |
| Search Engine | Ctrl+K |
Tabbed Browsing
In order to open a new (blank) tab, press Ctrl+T. To close a tab, press Ctrl+W. If you closed a tab by mistake and would like to recover it, press Ctrl+Shift+T.
If you are entering an address in the location bar, and would like to open it in a new tab, press Alt+Enter (or Alt plus any of the three combinations listed in the "Entering URLs" section). If you are browsing a page and see a link you would like to open in a new tab, hold Ctrl while clicking the link with your mouse (Ctrl+Click), press Ctrl+Enter after you Tab onto the link, or middle click the link. (Doing each of these will open the link in the background. In order to open the link in the foreground, also hold Shift during each of these shortcuts.)
If you have multiple tabs, you can directly access the first tab using Ctrl+1, the second tab using Ctrl+2, and so on up to Ctrl+8 (Ctrl+9 takes you to the last tab, regardless of its number). To move from one tab to the next, or one tab to the previous, press Ctrl+PageUp or Ctrl+PageDown.
Finally, to start a whole new group of tabs (that is, a new window), press Ctrl+N.
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| New Tab | Ctrl+T |
| Close Tab | Ctrl+W |
| Recover Closed Tab | Ctrl+Shift+T |
| Open Address in New Tab | Alt+Enter |
| Open Link in New Tab (Background) | Ctrl+Click Ctrl+Enter MiddleClick |
| Open Link in New Tab (Foreground) | Ctrl+Shift+Click Ctrl+Shift+Enter Shift+MiddleClick |
| Select Tab | Ctrl+(1 to 8) |
| Select Last Tab | Ctrl+9 |
| Next Tab | Ctrl+PageDown |
| Previous Tab | Ctrl+PageUp |
| New Window | Ctrl+N |
Searching Page Text
To find a specific word or phrase in the text of a page, press Ctrl+F. To use the various search commands listed in the search bar, such as to find the "Next" instance of the word, press Alt and the letter underlined in the corresponding command. In the case of "Next" word, it would be Alt+N.
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Find | Ctrl+F |
| Next Result | Alt+N |
| Previous Result | Alt+P |
| Highlight All | Alt+A |
| Match Case | Alt+C |
Miscellaneous
| Action | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Bookmarks | Ctrl+B |
| History | Ctrl+H |
| Downloads | Ctrl+J |
| Zoom In | Ctrl++ |
| Zoom Out | Ctrl+- |
| Reset Zoom | Ctrl+0 |
| Full Screen | F11 |
| Advance to Next Link | Tab |
| Help | F1 |
Notes
This list is not exhaustive because I've omitted, for brevity, most of the obvious shortcuts (e.g., PageDown), redundant shortcuts (e.g., Alt+D), and esoteric shortcuts (e.g., Ctrl+Shift+D).These shortcuts work in both Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 for both Windows and Linux. (However, there do exist shortcuts which will only work in one version or operating system.) Most of these shortcuts will work in Mac OS after substituting Cmd for Ctrl, Option for Alt, and Return for Enter.
For a more complete list of shortcuts, see the official Mozilla website.
Digg this page.










Rajamanickam Antonimuthu
Invite as author
Nice Article.
Is there anyway to control position of new tab?
(i-e) In firefox, when we open new tab it will be opened as last tab. How to force it to open at desired place ?
In chrome, the new tab is getting opened in position next to current tab.
Angela
Invite as author
Nice knol
EditSaveCancelDeleteDeleteBlock this userReport abusive commentHide report window
Leon Starr
Invite as author
Love it!
EditSaveCancelDeleteDeleteBlock this userReport abusive commentHide report window
Dan R Greening
Invite as author
Minor Edits
I would like to know how to put focus in the main window through the keyboard, so I can use page-up page-down reliably. Of course, if the focus is in the URL entry area, this doesn't work (at least on a Mac).
Thanks for a nice article.
Thanks for the suggestions. I've changed the URL.
There does not exist a standard shortcut to put the focus in the main window. However, pressing the Tab key, which advances the focus from link to link, will usually bring the focus to the main window..
EditSaveCancelDeleteDeleteBlock this userReport abusive commentHide report window
mdakin
Invite as author
Improve layout
Thanks for the suggestions. I've edited the article to do both.
EditSaveCancelDeleteDeleteBlock this userReport abusive commentHide report window