Stuck nudging the cursor piecemeal with arrow keys on your Mac? Switching to the mouse just to navigate text slows your flow? Plenty of Mac apps embrace Emacs-style key bindings for swift editing. Find here all the keyboard shortcuts to use for editing text on a Mac ⤓.
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How to Use Mac Text Movement and Editing Keyboard Shortcuts
General-Purpose Mac Text Editing Shortcuts
The general-purpose keyboard shortcuts for moving work anywhere you can edit text. You can use them when you write an email in Mail, on the Terminal command line, in Safari, TextEdit, etc.
Moving Around
| Action | Keyboard Shortcut |
|---|---|
| one character backward | Control B |
| one character forward | Control F |
| one line up | Control P |
| one line down | Control N |
| one screen down | Control V |
| beginning of paragraph | Control A |
| end of paragraph | Control E |
| center display on the current line | Control L |
The arrow keys, of course, also work for moving around in text:
| Action | Keyboard Shortcut |
|---|---|
| one character backward | ← |
| one character forward | → |
| one line up | ↑ |
| one line down | ↓ |
| one word backward | Option ← |
| one word forward | Option → |
| beginning of paragraph | Option ↑ |
| end of paragraph | Option ↓ |
| beginning of document | Command ↑ |
| end of document | Command ↓ |
Getting around?
Tips help fuel these email and tech how-tos.
Mac Keyboard Shortcuts for Highlighting Text
To highlight,
- combine any of the motions from above with Shift.
Mac Keyboard Shortcuts for Editing Text
| Action | Keyboard Shortcut |
|---|---|
| switch the characters left and right of cursor | Control T |
| delete backwards | Control H |
| delete forwards | Control D |
| cut highlighted text | Control K |
| cut till end of paragraph | Control K (with nothing highlighted) |
| paste previously cut text | Control Y |
| start a new line but stay in the current one | Control O |
These work in conjunction with the shortcuts using the Command and Option keys:
| Action | Keyboard Shortcut |
|---|---|
| delete one character backward | Backspace |
| delete one character forward | Fn Backspace |
| delete one word backward | Option Backspace |
| delete one word forward | Fn Option Backspace |
| delete until the beginning of the line | Command Backspace |
| cut highlighted text | Command X |
| copy highlighted text | Command C |
| paste | Command V |
| paste without formatting | Command Option Shift V |
Make note of the last shortcut in particular. Pasting just plain text without formatting will save you much anguish and time.
Their word: Apple include information on text editing shortcuts in a support article.
A keyboard shortcut for AI editing help: How to Use a Keyboard Shortcut for Mac AI Writing Tools
(Tested with macOS Tahoe 26.0–26.5, Sequoia 15.3, Sonoma 14.3–14.6 and Ventura 13.3; first published April 2023, last updated June 2026)