Ultimate Switcher Guide: Windows PC to Mac Keyboard Shortcuts

If you make heavy use of keyboard shortcuts, one of the biggest challenges is learning them on the Mac. What was once ingrained in your memory now can leave you feeling frustrated and bitter that you ever switched. Don't throw your Mac out the window yet! Thankfully, in many cases it’s simply shifting your pinky a couple of keys to the right.

If you feel new to the keyboard shortcut thing, we are talking about how you can involke commands usually found in the your computer's menus by pressing a combination of keys on the keyboard instead. Many people find this way of working much faster and efficient both on Macs and PCs. The trouble is, the key combinations are slightly different from Mac to PC. Find out more about Mac shortcuts in our MFM article, Mastering Keyboard Shortcuts on the Mac.

To keep things simple, we’ll stick to the standard full-size keyboards that ship with most Windows machines and Macs. We’ll also skip specialized keys that may control things like brightness, iTunes and such.

Let’s start with the keys. Windows and Mac Computer Keyboards sport nearly all the same keys although placement and naming might be slightly different.

However, Macs add the “Command” (⌘) key (also known as “Apple” or “Open-Apple”) and Windows the “Windows” key (also known as “Start”). Here is the (very) basic breakdown:

For the most part, a Control + Key in Windows translates to a Command + Key in Mac OS. This is the fundamental conceptual shift to understand. Instead of hitting that Control key in the corner with your pinky, try to use your thumb to nail the Command key on the Mac keyboard. Some even think the thumb on Command provides a better "pivot" to reach most of the keyboard with one hand.

When looking for a shortcut, look in the menus for the keyboard equivalents (listed to the right of the menu item in orange below) or search in the Help menu for “Keyboard Shortcuts”

Here is a list of commonly-used Windows keyboard shortcuts and their Mac equivalents.

System Shortcuts

MS Office / iWork

Internet Explorer / Safari Shortcuts

Okay, that was a long list. Remember, start out by trying to swap Command for Control in your memorized shortcuts from PCs. Also, if you've been trying and trying and still want to smash your Mac, before going back to Windows try altering the shortcuts to make them what you want them to be. Some applications let your "remap" the shortcuts by using that ability in the program, and Mac OS X lets you do that to some extent in the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane. Open it and click on Keyboard shortcuts to see what you can do. Don't forget to scroll to the bottom to add application specific shortcuts.

Have you struggled with this issue before? Do you have some tips to share or questions about it? What about important shortcuts that aren't in the tables? Let us know in the Comments section below!