Useful Mac Keyboard Shortcuts for a Windows User

There’s a lot of keyboard shortcuts available to a Mac user. As a primarily Windows user, I’ve found a few shortcuts that are extremely helpful as a programmer and may be useful to you too. If you’re interested in the full list here’s a list of hundreds of them.

Command + Tab – Move forward to the next most recently used application in a list of open applications. My most used shortcut. This also exists in Windows, but a lot of users aren’t aware of this shortcut.

Command + W – Close the frontmost window

Command + Spacebar – Access Spotlight for searching the web, iCloud and your local files

Shortcuts for screen captures

Command + Shift + 3 – Capture the screen to a file

Command + Shift + Control + 3 – Capture the screen to the Clipboard

Command + Shift + 4 – Capture a selection to a file

Command + Shift + Control + 4 – Capture a selection to the Clipboard. My most used shortcut when I just need to capture a certain portion of the screen and don’t want to save the file. Happens a lot.

Shortcuts for using Finder

Shift + Command Key + N – Create new folder

Shortcuts in a Document

Control + A – Move to to the beginning of the line or paragraph.

Control + E - Move to the end of a line or paragraph

Control + F - Move one character forward.

Control + B - Move one character backward.

Control + P - Move up one line.

Control + N - Move down one line.