The 30 Most Important Windows Keyboard Shortcuts

These 30 shortcuts cover copying, switching windows, selecting text and browser tabs without touching the mouse. Every combination matches Microsoft's official list for Windows 10 and 11, sorted by situation and ready to print.

General

• Ctrl + C - Copy
• Ctrl + V - Paste
• Ctrl + X - Cut
• Ctrl + Z - Undo
• Ctrl + Y - Redo
• Ctrl + A - Select all
• Ctrl + S - Save
• Ctrl + F - Find
• Ctrl + P - Print
• Ctrl + Shift + V - Paste without formatting

Windows & Desktop

• Alt + Tab - Switch between windows
• Win + D - Show desktop
• Win + L - Lock screen
• Win + E - Open File Explorer
• Win + Left/Right Arrow - Snap window to side
• Alt + F4 - Close window
• Win + Tab - Task view

Text editing

• Ctrl + B - Bold
• Ctrl + I - Italic
• Ctrl + U - Underline
• Home - Beginning of line
• End - End of line
• Ctrl + Home - Beginning of document
• Ctrl + End - End of document
• Ctrl + Shift + Arrow - Select word

Browser

• Ctrl + T - New tab
• Ctrl + W - Close tab
• Ctrl + Shift + T - Reopen closed tab
• Ctrl + L - Focus address bar
• Ctrl + Tab - Next tab

Pro tip

Don't learn them all at once. Pick 3 shortcuts per week and use them deliberately. After 10 weeks, you'll know all 30. On a Mac? Here are the 30 most important Mac shortcuts. Emojis have their own shortcut too: How to Type Emojis.

Next step

Shortcuts save clicks, touch typing saves time on every word. Start with a free typing speed test to see how much room there is. How touch typing works is explained in the complete touch typing guide.

Windows and Mac side by side on one page: the printable keyboard shortcuts.

Matching sheets

Two more sheets go with the shortcuts: the special characters sheet with @, #, brackets and backslash, and the numpad map for everyone who wants to enter numbers without looking. For Office, there are dedicated sheets: Excel keyboard shortcuts, Word keyboard shortcuts and Outlook keyboard shortcuts. Working in Google's apps? See the Gmail keyboard shortcuts and Google Docs keyboard shortcuts. All text editing shortcuts for Windows and Mac side by side: keyboard shortcuts to type faster.

Sources

• Keyboard shortcuts in Windows - Microsoft Support, the complete official list.