Handy Excel keyboard shortcuts for Windows and Mac

Excel’s Ribbon is great for finding everything you might ever want to do in a spreadsheet, particularly things you don’t do frequently, like managing and querying data connections or automatically grabbing geographic statistics from the internet and inserting them into cells.

But if you’re looking to do things fast, you’ll find keyboard shortcuts far more useful. Why bother to lift your hands from the keyboard if you want to open or close a file, apply formatting to cells, navigate through workbooks, undo and redo actions, calculate all worksheets in all open workbooks, and more? With keyboard shortcuts you won’t have to.

There are keyboard shortcuts to accomplish a vast array of tasks in the Excel desktop client, in both the Windows and Mac versions. (Fewer shortcuts are available for the Mac, but you can create your own custom keyboard shortcuts if you like.)

We’ve listed the shortcuts we’ve found the most useful below. Most work whether you’re using a subscription (Microsoft 365/Office 365) or non-subscription version of Excel. For even more shortcuts, see Microsoft’s Office site.

Useful Excel keyboard shortcuts

Note: On Macs, the ⌘ key is the same as the Command or Cmd key. Also note that with many Mac keyboards, you must press the Fn key in addition to a function key.

General shortcuts

Action	Windows key combination	Mac key combination
Create a new workbook	Ctrl-N	⌘-N
Open a workbook	Ctrl-O	⌘-O
Save a workbook	Ctrl-S	⌘-S
Close a workbook	Ctrl-W	⌘-W
Print a workbook	Ctrl-P	⌘-P
Insert a new worksheet (tab)	Alt-Shift-F1	Shift-Fn-F11
Display the Find dialog box	Ctrl-F	Control-F
Display the Go To dialog box	F5	Fn-F5
Undo the last action	Ctrl-Z	⌘-Z or Control-Z
Redo the last action	Ctrl-Y	⌘-Y or Control-Y
Insert or edit a cell comment	Shift-F2	⌘-Shift-Fn-F2
Select all cells that contain comments	Ctrl-Shift-O
Spell-check the active worksheet or selected range	F7	Fn-F7

Worksheet navigation

Action	Windows key combination	Mac key combination
Move one screen up / down	PgUp / PgDn	Page Up / Page Down or Fn-up arrow / Fn-down arrow
Move one screen to the left / right	Alt-PgUp / Alt-PgDn	Option-Page Up / Option-Page Down or Fn-Option-up arrow / Fn-Option-down arrow
Move one worksheet tab to the left / right	Ctrl-PgUp / Ctrl-PgDn	Control-Page Down / Control-Page Up or Option-right arrow / Option-Left arrow
Move one cell up / down	up arrow / down arrow	up arrow / down arrow
Move to the next cell to the right	Tab	right arrow
Move to the cell to the left	Shift-Tab	left arrow
Move to the beginning of a row	Home	Home or Fn-left arrow
Move to the beginning of a worksheet	Ctrl-Home	Control-Home or Control-Fn-Left arrow
Move to the last cell that has content in it	Ctrl-End	Control-End or Control-Fn-right arrow
Move to the word to the left while in a cell	Ctrl-left arrow	⌘-left arrow
Move to the word to the right while in a cell	Ctrl-right arrow	⌘-right arrow
Display the Go To dialog box	Ctrl-G or F5	Ctrl-G or Fn-F5
Switch between the worksheet, the Ribbon, the task pane, and Zoom controls	F6	Fn-F6
If more than one worksheet is open, switch to the next one	Ctrl-F6	⌘-~

Working with data

Action	Windows key combination	Mac key combination
Select a row	Shift-Spacebar	Shift-Spacebar
Select a column	Ctrl-Spacebar	Control-Spacebar
Select an entire worksheet	Ctrl-A or Ctrl-Shift-Spacebar	⌘-A
Extend selection by a single cell	Shift-arrow key	Shift-arrow key
Extend selection down / up one screen	Shift-PgDn / Shift-PgUp	Shift-PgDn / Shift-PgUp or Shift-Fn-down arrow / Shift-Fn-up arrow
Extend selection to the beginning of a row	Shift-Home	Shift-Home or Shift-Fn-left arrow
Extend selection to the beginning of the worksheet	Ctrl-Shift-Home	Control-Shift-Home or Control-Shift-Fn-left arrow
Hide selected rows	Ctrl-9	⌘-9 or Control-9
Unhide hidden rows in a selection	Ctrl-Shift-(	⌘-Shift-( or Control-Shift-(
Hide selected columns	Ctrl-0	⌘-0 or Control-0
Unhide hidden columns in a selection	Ctrl-Shift-)	⌘-Shift-) or Control-Shift-)
Copy cell’s contents to the clipboard	Ctrl-C	⌘-C or Control-C
Copy and delete cell’s contents	Ctrl-X	⌘-X or Control-X
Paste from the clipboard into a cell	Ctrl-V	⌘-V or Control-V
Display the Paste Special dialog box	Ctrl-Alt-V	⌘-Option-V or Control-Option-V
Finish entering data in a cell and move to the next cell down / up	Enter / Shift-Enter	Enter / Shift-Enter
Cancel your entry in a cell	Esc	Esc
Use Flash Fill to fill the current column based on adjacent columns	Ctrl-E	Control-E
Insert the current date	Ctrl-;	Control-;
Insert the current time	Ctrl-Shift-;	⌘-;
Display the Create Table dialog box	Ctrl-T or Ctrl-L	Control-T
When in the formula bar, move the cursor to the end of the text	Ctrl-End	⌘-End or ⌘-Fn-right arrow
When in the formula bar, select all text from the cursor to the end	Ctrl-Shift-End	⌘-Shift-End or ⌘-Shift-Fn-right arrow
Display Quick Analysis options for selected cells that contain data	Ctrl-Q
Create, run, edit, or delete a macro	Alt-F8	Option-Fn-F8

Formatting cells and data

Action	Windows key combination	Mac key combination
Display the Format Cells dialog box	Ctrl-1	⌘-1 or Control-1
Display the Style dialog box (Windows) / Modify Cell Style dialog box (Mac)	Alt-‘	Option-‘
Apply a border to a cell or selection	Ctrl-Shift-&	⌘-Option-0
Remove a border from a cell or selection	Ctrl-Shift-_ (underscore)	⌘-Option– (hyphen)
Apply the Currency format with two decimal places	Ctrl-Shift-$	Control-Shift-$
Apply the Number format	Ctrl-Shift-~	Control-Shift-~
Apply the Percentage format with no decimal places	Ctrl-Shift-%	Control-Shift-%
Apply the Date format using day, month, and year	Ctrl-Shift-#	Control-Shift-#
Apply the Time format using the 12-hour clock	Ctrl-Shift-@	Control-Shift-@
Insert a hyperlink	Ctrl-K	⌘-K or Control-K

Working with formulas and functions

Action	Windows key combination	Mac key combination
Begin a formula	=	=
Insert a function	Shift-F3	Shift-Fn-F3
Insert an AutoSum function	Alt-=	⌘-Shift-T
Accept / insert function with AutoComplete	Tab	Tab-down arrow
Cancel an entry in the cell or formula bar	Esc	Esc
Edit active cell, put insertion point at end	F2	Control-U
Toggle between displaying formulas and cell values	Ctrl-`	Control-`
Cycle formula references among absolute, relative, and mixed	F4	⌘-T or Fn-F4
Copy and paste the formula from the cell above into the current one	Ctrl-‘	Control-Shift-“
Calculate the current worksheet	Shift-F9	Shift-Fn-F9
Calculate all worksheets in all workbooks that are open	F9	Fn-F9
Expand or collapse the formula bar	Ctrl-Shift-U	Control-Shift-U

Ribbon navigation

Excel for Mac does not have keyboard shortcuts for the Ribbon.

Action	Windows key combination
Display Ribbon shortcuts	Alt
Go to the File tab	Alt-F
Go to the Home tab	Alt-H
Go to the Insert tab	Alt-N
Go to the Page Layout tab	Alt-P
Go to the Formulas tab	Alt-M
Go to the Data tab	Alt-A
Go to the Review tab	Alt-R
Go to the View tab	Alt-W
Put cursor in the Tell Me or Search box	Alt-Q
Go to the Chart Design tab when cursor is on a chart	Alt-JC
Go to the Format tab when cursor is on a chart	Alt-JA
Go to the Table Design tab when cursor is on a table	Alt-JT
Go to the Picture Format tab when cursor is on an image	Alt-JP
Go to the Draw tab (if available)	Alt-JI
Go to the Power Pivot tab (if available)	Alt-B

Looking for more help with Excel for Windows? If you have an Office subscription, see “Excel for Office 365/Microsoft 365 cheat sheet.” If you have a non-subscription version of Office, see “Excel 2016 and 2019 cheat sheet.” We’ve also got cheat sheets for an array of other Microsoft products, including older versions of Office.

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