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20 shortcuts for faster Facebook navigation

Control Facebook from your keyboard with these handy shortcuts.

Matt Elliott Senior Editor
Matt Elliott is a senior editor at CNET with a focus on laptops and streaming services. Matt has more than 20 years of experience testing and reviewing laptops. He has worked for CNET in New York and San Francisco and now lives in New Hampshire. When he's not writing about laptops, Matt likes to play and watch sports. He loves to play tennis and hates the number of streaming services he has to subscribe to in order to watch the various sports he wants to watch.
Expertise Laptops, desktops, all-in-one PCs, streaming devices, streaming platforms
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Matt Elliott
2 min read
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If you don't use its mobile app exclusively and still check Facebook from your computer from time to time, then you might improve your Facebook experience with a few keyboard shortcuts.

Access keys

With these keyboard shortcuts, you can jump to the various areas of Facebook by pressing a key or two plus a number, which Facebook calls an access key. The shortcut combinations vary a bit from browser to browser but let you navigate Facebook a bit more quickly.

Windows:

Chrome and Edge: Alt + #

Firefox: Alt + Shift + #

Mac:

Chrome, Firefox and Safari: Control + Option + #

  • 1 -- News Feed
  • 2 -- Your Timeline
  • 3 -- Friends
  • 4 -- Inbox
  • 5 -- Notifications
  • 6 -- Settings
  • 7 -- Activity Log
  • 8 -- About
  • 9 -- Terms
  • 0 -- Help

Of this list, you'll likely use the first two most frequently along with #4 and #5 to check your Facebook messages and notifications, respectively. On Chrome on a Mac, for example, you would hit Control-Option-1 to head to the top of your News Feed, and Control-Option-2 to go to your timeline. Control-Option+1 also works as a quick way to refresh yours News Feed.

In testing with Microsoft's Edge browser on a Windows 10 PC, I found that only the Alt-1, Alt-2, Alt-9 and Alt-0 shortcuts worked. And nothing from the list below worked on Edge.

Navigating the News Feed

In addition to the above shortcuts, there are a number of keys you can use when taking a spin through the News Feed.

  • J -- move to next story in feed
  • K -- move to previous story in feed
  • L -- like or unlike the selected story
  • C -- comment on selected story
  • S -- share selected story
  • O -- open image or link of selected story
  • Esc -- close image and return to News Feed
  • P -- post a new status
  • / -- search
  • Q -- search chat contacts

For more Facebook how-tos, learn how to post 360-degree photos on Facebook, how to turn off a creepy Facebook feature, how to show your pride on Facebook and how to create a Facebook profile video.

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