Shortcut Keys for Tabbed Browsing

You seriously learn something new every day. I only just found out about keyboard shortcuts to enhance tabbed browsing, something that has been a feature in Firefox (and more recently Internet Explorer) for years already.

And because I fear that there may still be people like me outside there in this great big world of ours, I thought I’d better share these keyboard shortcuts that work across most tabbed browsers with you!

So let’s start then.

In order to open a link in a new tab and jump straight to it, hold down CTRL+SHIFT and click on the link. In order to open it up in a new tab but NOT jump straight to it, simply hold down CTRL and click on the link. CTRL+T will simply open a new empty tab and jump you straight to it.

To jump to the next open tab in your tabbed browser, simply press CTRL+TAB. To reverse through your open tabs, use CTRL+SHIFT9TAB.

CTRL+W will close the tab you are currently focused on.

If you want to jump to a specific tab and you have 8 tabs open, pressing CTRL+n where n is a number between 1 and 8 will jump you directly to that particular tab based on the order in which it currently sits. CTRL+9 generally takes you to the last open tab.

And finally, in Internet Explorer, pressing CTRL+ALT+F4 will close all tabs except for the one you are currently viewing. Also, and probably the coolest of the lot, CTRL+Q opens up a new tab which lists all your currently open tabs with a thumbnail, similar to the way Chrome displays its blank tabs.

So now you know! ;)

About Craig Lotter

Craig Lotter is a 29-ish year old software and web developer by trade (currently working for Touchwork), who also just happens to never have been able to shake off that pesky inner child within. Call him a fanboy, geek, nerd or whatever you want, just so long as you enjoy what he writes. His main personal site can be found at http://www.craiglotter.co.za and his webcomic, House of C can be found at http://www.houseofc.codeunit.co.za/
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