Ask a software developer, banker, writer, or really anyone who types professionally and they will sing the praises of keyboard shortcuts. Much like graduating from hunt and peck to touch typing, using keyboard shortcuts frees up your brain from the distraction of target acquisition. Using shortcuts allows you to outsource functions like copy and paste from your conscious mind (using a mouse) to your unconscious mind (muscle memory). This lets you keep your focus where it belongs — on the problem you’re trying to solve.
Excel is designed for power users, and as a result, there are hundreds of delectable keyboard shortcuts that you could learn (especially on Windows). It would be great to memorize all of those shortcuts but for most people that isn’t feasible. Luckily, after spending thousands upon thousands of hours in Excel I’ve narrowed down the field to the most valuable ones on your behalf.
I will go through each of these in detail but to learn them faster, start by printing the commands out or writing them down. Once you’ve read the article and you understand what each shortcut does, spend two or three minutes per day practicing until you know them by heart. I guarantee after a week you’ll wonder how you survived without them!
Keyboard Shortcuts Cheat Sheet (Mac)
Navigation
- Quick Navigation:
CMD+arrow keys - Switch Sheets:
ctrl+Fn+Up/Down
Selection
- Select All:
CMD+a - Quick Selection:
CMD+SHIFT+arrow keys - Select Row:
SHIFT+SPACE
Row Operations
- Delete Row:
CMD+- - Add Row:
CMD+SHIFT++
Fill Cells
- Fill Right:
CMD+r - Fill Down:
CMD+d
Snazzy Bonus Shortcuts
- Sum:
CMD+SHIFT+t - Toggle Filters:
CMD+SHIFT+f - Paste Special:
CMD+Control+v
Navigation
Quick Navigation
CMD + arrow keys
The ability to dash from place to place in your workbook is essential to productivity. One of the best ways to do this is through Excel’s Quick Navigation function using CMD and the arrow keys.
The easiest way to understand how Quick Navigation works is to think of your workbook like a series of islands. Whenever you use CMD + arrow keys your cursor jumps to the next piece of coastline in the direction you choose.
For example, if you’re in the middle of an Excel island (i.e.: a block of data) and you press CMD + RIGHT, then your cursor will jump to the shoreline, (the right side) of that block.
If you press CMD + RIGHT again, then your cursor will leave shoreline on the right side of Island A. It will cross the ocean until it hits the next bit of coastline which happens to be the left side of Island B.
This is an extremely powerful tool, and you can use it to hop between the different sections in your workbook at lightning speed.
If you are playing around and suddenly find yourself way over in column XFD or row 1,048,576 don’t panic! This just means that you went past your data and all the way to the edge of the sheet. Do the opposite of your last command and you’ll be back on solid ground.
Switch Sheets
CMD + Fn + Up/Down
Switching sheets is one of the most common things you will do in Excel. Although it seems insignificant, the five or ten seconds it takes to switch with your mouse adds up surprisingly quickly. Use CMD + Fn + Up/Down to make this task immediate.
The strange arrow is Page Up and Page Down, Mac’s command for Fn + Up/Down
Selection
Select All
CMD + a
CMD + a selects the block of data surrounding your cursor. This is a quick way to highlight a big section of data for copying, pasting, formatting, etc. but it has one caveat. If you have the cursor outside of a block of data, then Excel will assume you’re trying to select the entire workbook. This is almost never the right thing to do since a single Excel sheet has over 17 billion cells! It’s much less exhausting for your computer if you only select and work on the cells where your data actually lives.
Quick Selection
CMD + SHIFT + arrow keys
Quick Selection acts almost exactly like Quick Navigation with one exception. As long as you’re holding SHIFT it will activate any cells between where your cursor started and where you move.
Select Row
SHIFT + SPACE
This one is pretty self-explanatory. It highlights the row at the cursor’s location. If you have multiple rows selected when you use this shortcut, it will select all of those rows. This is particularly useful for our next section, Row Operations.
(key tracking disabled, it goes a little haywire with shift + space)
Row Operations
Delete Row
CMD +- (with a row selected)
In order for this shortcut to work, the entire row (or rows) must be active. If an entire row is not active, a dialog box will appear allowing you to delete that chunk of cells and shift the other cells to fill the gap instead.
Add Row
CMD + SHIFT + + (with a row selected)
Much like Delete Row, the entire row must be selected for this command to work properly, otherwise, the insert dialog box will appear instead.
Fill Cells
Fill Right
CMD + r
When you have a block of cells selected, Fill Right takes whatever is contained in the left-most cell and spreads it across any cells to the right. This includes numbers, text, formatting, and formulas. This shortcut is amazingly, wonderfully, blissfully helpful when trying to build, manage, or update sheets. Learn this one by heart.
Fill Down
CMD + d
Fill Right’s close cousin, Fill Down acts the same way but (as you may have guessed) it fills down instead of to the right.
What happened to Fill Left and Fill Up?
Great question! To understand the answer it’s important to remember that Excel was originally designed for accountants to manage financial statements. Financial statements tend to start at the upper left and flow to the lower right — thus the focus on filling right and down. Luckily for us with a little ingenuity Fill Right and Fill Down cover all of the use cases we need.
Snazzy Bonus Shortcuts
Sum
CMD + SHIFT + t
The Sum shortcut isn’t a command you will rely on as much as Quick Navigation, but it’s deeply satisfying to use when the situation calls for it. Simply put, it will look for a series of numbers directly above or directly to the left of the active cell and apply a =sum() formula to them. Here’s an example so you can see it in action.
Toggle Filters
CMD + SHIFT + f
Filters are a great way to explore your data. Adding filters without having to muck around in the toolbars is a nice time saver. Where this shortcut really shines is in a quick off/on toggle. When using filters it’s all too easy to forget that you have one active and accidentally lose a chunk of your data. By toggling the filters off and on, you reset them. This ensures that you’re working with a clean slate.
Paste Special
CMD + Control + v (with data on the clipboard)
If you’ve ever pasted data from an email or a website with strange formatting then you understand the use case for this shortcut. When you have an item on the clipboard and you use this shortcut, the Paste Special dialog box appears. Paste Special gives you access to a number of useful paste options like Transpose, Validation, and Paste Format. By far the most valuable option is Paste as Values. This allows you to strip out any formatting, links, and other unnecessary cruft and add a clean set of values into your workbook.
Excel is slammed to the gills with keyboard shortcuts. If you’re going to spend hours and hours in spreadsheets every day, then they are probably worth learning. However, chances are you aren’t a first-year investment banker or an aspiring competitor in the Excel Olympics. (Yes, that’s actually a thing.) It’s more likely that you’re an average person with a few data problems to solve who wants to be a little more efficient. Learning the shortcuts above is an excellent first step in that direction.