Tips & tricks

.new addresses: a blank document in one second

Type docs.new or sheets.new into your browser — and a new document opens right away. word.new and excel.new from Microsoft work too.

Shift+F5 in Word: jump to your last edit

Shift+F5

Open a document and Word dumps you at the start. Shift+F5 jumps exactly to where you last stopped writing.

Ctrl+Enter: a new page without hammering Enter

Ctrl+Enter

Paginating with twenty presses of Enter falls apart at the first edit. Ctrl+Enter inserts a real page break that stays put.

Alt+drag in Word: a vertical text selection

Hold Alt and drag with the mouse — Word selects a rectangle of text across lines. Perfect for deleting a column of characters that a normal selection can't grab.

F2 renames a function across the whole project — no searching, no replacing

F2

Renaming a symbol with F2 changes a function or variable everywhere it's used, across files. Smarter than find and replace.

Alt+arrows: move lines of code instead of cutting and pasting

Alt+↓

Alt+up/down arrow moves a line or block to a new spot, Shift+Alt+arrow duplicates it. No more juggling Ctrl+X and Ctrl+V.

Ctrl+Shift+D saves every tab into a single bookmarks folder

Ctrl+Shift+D

Have to close your browser right now but you're mid-research with twenty tabs open? One shortcut saves them all as a bookmarks folder.

Page behaving strangely? Try a hard refresh with Ctrl+F5

Ctrl+F5

Broken layout, an old version, a button that doesn't respond — Ctrl+F5 forces the browser to download the page again, from scratch.

Ctrl+W and Ctrl+U: delete by word and by line in the terminal

Ctrl+W

A typo at the start of a long command isn't a reason to hold down Backspace. Ctrl+W deletes a word, Ctrl+U a line, Ctrl+A jumps to the start.

Ctrl+R in the terminal: type a piece of a command, history finds it

Ctrl+R

You don't have to fish a long command from last week out with the up arrow. Ctrl+R searches history for any fragment and autocompletes the whole thing.

Delete an annoying suggestion from the address bar: Shift+Delete

Shift+Delete

Does your browser keep offering a typo or an old site? Select the suggestion with the arrow key and press Shift+Delete — it's gone for good.

Jump to any slide while presenting: type the number, hit Enter

During a slideshow, type a slide number and press Enter — you're there. No clicking back through twenty slides in front of an audience.

Ctrl+D in PowerPoint: a duplicate that remembers the spacing

Ctrl+D

Duplicate an object, move it into place — and the next Ctrl+D copies with the same offset built in. A row of evenly spaced elements in seconds.

Hold the back button — jump five pages at once

Alt+←

A long press on the back arrow unfolds the tab's history. Instead of clicking back five times, jump straight to the page where you started.

Swipe along the bottom edge: Alt+Tab for your phone

Swiping right along the bottom edge of the screen switches to your previous app — on iPhone and on Android with gesture navigation. No app switcher needed.

Hold an app icon: quick actions without opening it

A long press on an icon opens a shortcut menu: new email, selfie, private tab, navigate home. One tap instead of hunting inside the app.

Double space: a period, a space, and a capital letter at once

Tap the space bar twice at the end of a sentence — your phone inserts a period and a space, then capitalizes the next sentence. iPhone and Android.

Numbers without switching keyboards: slide your finger off the 123 key

On iPhone, slide your finger off the 123 key onto a digit and the keyboard snaps back to letters by itself. Gboard has a key hold or a permanent number row.

Quick Note: Fn+Q opens a sticky note anywhere in the system

Fn+Q

An idea or a phone call in the middle of work? Fn+Q brings up a floating note over whatever you're doing — and it saves itself to Notes.

The title bar icon: drag a file straight out of the app

Drag a document you have open straight into an email or chat using the small icon in the window's title bar — no hunting for the file in Finder.

Moving through text on a Mac: Option and Cmd with arrow keys

Option+→

Option plus an arrow key jumps by word, Cmd jumps to the start and end of a line. Switchers from Windows type on a Mac with the handbrake on until they learn these.

Hold a key and pick a character: accented letters without hunting for them

You don't need to hunt through special character tables for accented letters on a Mac — hold a letter down and a menu of all its accented variants pops up.

Organize your menu bar: Cmd+drag moves icons

Cmd

The icons in your Mac's menu bar aren't nailed down — hold Cmd and drag them elsewhere, or drag one downward to remove it entirely.

Copy a file's path: Cmd+Option+C in Finder

Cmd+Option+C

Need the exact path to a file for the terminal, a script, or an email to IT? Finder can copy it with one shortcut — it's just well hidden.

Cmd+Shift+/ finds any menu command — and shows you where it lives

Cmd+Shift+/

Not sure where an app hides a certain feature? This shortcut opens menu search, finds the command by name, and points an arrow at where it lives.

Drag a folder into a Save dialog — and you're there

You don't have to click your way through a Save dialog: drag a folder or file from Finder into it and the dialog jumps straight to that spot.

Google Calendar from the keyboard: C creates an event, T jumps to today

C

One letter instead of clicking: C for a new event, T for today, D/W/M to switch views, J and K to page through. A question mark shows every shortcut.

Tap the clock to jump a long page back to the top

On iPhone, just tap the status bar with the clock and any long list, webpage, or chat snaps back to the top. No scrolling required.

Three fingers on iPhone: copy, paste, and undo

The iPhone has gestures for working with text: a three-finger pinch copies, a spread pastes, and a swipe left undoes the last action.

The Action Button: A Physical Shortcut on the Side of Your iPhone

Newer iPhones have a programmable button above the volume controls. Voice memo, flashlight, camera, or a custom shortcut with one press-and-hold.