The Keyboard Navigation Club

If like me you use the keyboard more than the mouse/trackpad these days, you'll have been frustrated with the lack of keyboard shortcuts within macOS dialog boxes such as 'Save'. Gone are the (classic MacOS) days of being able to use your keyboard to navigate around, or so I thought.

Keyboard navigation is alive and well within macOS Sequoia (and possible previous generations of macOS but I've never noticed it) and can be enabled by going to System Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard > Keyboard Settings and toggling on Keyboard navigation.

Pressing the Tab key will navigate forward through all the on-screen elements within a dialog box. To move backwards, use Shift + Tab. Additionally, pressing the Spacebar will select the highlighted object. Game changer! 🥳 (well for me anyway).

Bonus Tip

While I was investigating other keyboard shortcuts I was totally oblivious of, I found this great video from MacMost which covers some other Save dialog shortcuts I wasn't aware of 🤦.

Everyday's a school day.

6 Keyboard Shortcuts You Can Use In Mac Open And Save Dialogs

When you save or open a file in an app on the Mac, you get a dialog box with several buttons. You can use keyboard shortcuts inside that dialog to cancel, perform the default action, and do other things. You can choose a location using the keyboard, either with a single shortcut or by specifying a path. You can also navigate to any of the buttons using the tab key and spacebar.

MacMost.comLaraine