Using the Mac Menu Bar With Only the Keyboard

While it seems like the Menu Bar is built to be controlled with your mouse or trackpad, you can actually get to everything in the Menu Bar using only your keyboard. In fact, there are several ways to do control the Menu Bar with your keyboard.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to use the Mac Menu Bar with just the keyboard. 
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Here is another video for fans that use the keyboard, over the mouse or trackpad, as much as possible. The Menu Bar may seem like it is a problem here. You can't even see what is available on the Menu Bar without using the mouse or trackpad. But there are actually plenty of ways to use the Menu Bar to its fullest with only the keyboard. The most obvious is to use the keyboard shortcuts that are already there. For instance if I wanted to Bold this text here I would go the Format Menu and then go to Font and then you could see Bold right here. The keyboard shortcut is shown right there. Command B. If you know that already you can use Command B to make the selected text Bold. If you don't know it you'll need to go to the Menu Bar once to find that out. Hopefully you'll remember after that. 
What happens if there is no keyboard shortcut? For instance look at Strikethrough. There's no keyboard shortcut here. Well, you can create your own keyboard shortcut for any item in the Menu Bar. To do that go to System Settings and then go down to Keyboard. Then look for the button Keyboard Shortcuts. Click that to create your own custom keyboard shortcuts you want to go on the left to App Shortcuts. Then click the Plus button. Here you want to choose the application you're using. If it is something really common that's across multiple apps you can stick with All Applications. Otherwise choose the specific app where you want to set the shortcut. So I'm going to choose Notes here. Then you need to type the menu title. Now in Notes this was under Format, under Font, and then it was Strikethrough. We don't care about Format or Font. We just need the exact name of the menu item. Then you want to type that here. If you get even one character wrong it's not going to work. So if it is not working for you make sure that the menu title you've typed is perfect. Then you want to click here and then type the keyboard shortcut. So let's set this as Command Option Shift and S for strikethrough. Now I'll click Done. Then I'll click Done here and I'll quit System Settings.
Now if I look in the Menu Bar under Format, Font you'll see Strikethrough has the keyboard shortcut there. If you check and you don't see it here that means you mistyped the word or you've assigned a keyboard shortcut that is being used by something else. So try again. But now that I've got that set to strikethrough some text I can just use the keyboard shortcut and it will do it. It works the same as if you select the item in the Menu Bar. So, in this case selecting the item in the Menu Bar is a second time will remove it and so will the keyboard shortcut. 
Now another way to access the Menu Bar is to use a special keyboard command that will activate the Menu Bar but without you touching the mouse or trackpad. The normal keyboard shortcut for this is to use Control (not Command but Control) and then F2. You may also need to add the fn or Globe Key to that depending upon your settings. We will look at that in a minute. I'm going to use Control and F2. Notice how the Apple Menu at the top left is now selected. Now I can use the arrow keys to navigate around. If I use the right arrow key it will move one menu to the right. I can keep moving to the right and the left arrow key will move to the left. Now I can use either the Return Key, the Spacebar, or the down arrow to open up that Menu and it will go to the first menu item. Now I can continue to use the Down arrow to select what I want. If there is a submenu, like Font here, I can simply use the right arrow to go over to it. The Left arrow will go back. So if I want to get to Strikethrough here I can just go down to it and now I can use Return or Spacebar and it will activate that Menu item. You can see how I was able to use that menu item with just the keyboard. 
Now note that the key to activate this can be found in System Settings and then go back to Keyboard, go to Keyboard Shortcuts again but this time go to Keyboard. Look for Move Focus to the Menu Bar. First you want to make sure it's checked so that it's active. But also you can customize it here. So, for instance, I can change this by double-clicking and then just using F2. If you're using an F key like F2 do note that you may have to add the Globe or fn key to this as well. To check for that go to the function keys section here and look for this switch. If you've got this turned Off that means that you need to add the Globe or fn key. If it is On then you don't need to anymore. So now I get to choose Control and F2 whereas with this turned Off I need to use Control, the fn key, and F2 to activate the menu bar. 
Here's a couple of more tips to go with this. If you use Control and F2 to go to the Menu Bar and then you go to a Menu, like this, you can jump to a specific menu item by hitting just a letter on the keyboard. If I wanted to use the Dashed List Function notice it is the first item with the left D. So just pressing D will jump right down to it. Now I can press the spacebar or Return to activate it. If I decide I don't want to use any item here at all, I just want to exit, I can use the Escape Key, like that.   
Now one of the problems with using Control F2 is sometimes it doesn't quite work. However, there is another way to get to the Menu Bar. There is a keyboard shortcut that will not jump to the Apple Menu but instead the Help Menu. That is to use Command Shift and the question mark key on US keyboards. Of course Shift and Slash is the Question Mark so what you're really saying is Command Question Mark. But it is three keys that you need to hit. So, for instance, if I use Shift Command and Question Mark here you could see it opens up the Help Menu. You'll see a blinking text cursor in the Search Box. But you can just ignore that and use the Left Arrow to go backwards through the items there. You're using the Menu Bar now exactly the same way you would as if you used Control and F2. You're just starting with the Help Menu instead of the Apple Menu. If find that this is actually more reliable than Control F2 in some cases. So if I have some text selected like this I can use Command Shift Question Mark. I can go back to the Format Menu. I can go down to Font and then to Strikethrough and Return without using the mouse or trackpad. 
But there is an even better way to do this using this same keyboard shortcut. So I'm going to use Shift Command and Question Mark and I've got that blinking text cursor there in Search and you would think that that allows me to search documentation. Which it does. But it also allows me to Search the Menu Bar items. So all I need to do is start typing the name of the Menu Bar item I want. I'll start typing Strikethrough. Notice how it lists any menu items that match this. If I had just typed St you can see how it has other ones here like Match Style, Retain Style, Copy Style that have St in it. But as soon as I go to Str only one matches that. Now if I were to Down Arrow to it you can see how that is highlighted font Strikethrough. It also shows me where this is. So I can see the Format Menu under Font there's Strikethrough. There's even that big blue arrow that is hovering there. So this is a good way to learn where something is if you've forgotten where the menu item is located. But you don't need to actually do anything else at this point except use Return. You can't use Space here because that would just type a space in that Help field. But Return will actually activate Font Strikethrough. So I can quickly, easily use Font Strikethrough that way. Watch me do it again. Shift Command Questions Mark, Str, it was already there but I can down arrow to it, Return, and I've used Strikethrough pretty quickly. Way faster than if I had used Control F2. 
Not as fast as a regular keyboard shortcut like Command B for Bold but it would be faster than Command B if I didn't remember that was the keyboard shortcut. Using the Help Menu like this would allow me to find it, remind me what the keyboard shortcut was, but also just a quick Return actually activates the menu so I don't have to keep that many keyboard shortcuts in my head. 
Now if you're not using a US keyboard or you might be unsure exactly how to get the Help Menu to come up check this and change it by going into System Settings, going back to Keyboard and then Keyboard Shortcuts. Then go to App Shortcuts. This is where you set custom shortcuts. But if you look under the category All Applications there will be one item that's there by default. If macOS is installed this is there by itself you don't need to create it. It should say Show Help Menu. Make sure it is checked and that is where you can set it. So I can actually change this to something else, like F12 or something like that if I wanted it to be a single key press. 
So there are a whole bunch of different ways to use the Menu bar with only the keyboard. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 7 Responses to “Using the Mac Menu Bar With Only the Keyboard”

Jim Terrinoni

7 months ago

THANK YOU. Very useful. You’ve covered parts of this before, however I needed the reminder.

Adding to my previous comment - I’d love to see a video on similar ways to use the iPhone keyboard.

Larry

I've yet to see a video that you make that doesn't teach me something new!! Great job (as usual) on this one, thank you kind Sir!!

Gene Bush

Thank you very much for this tip. I've been so disappointed over the years because the control F2 shortcut was completely unreliable. And having to use the fn key made everything more complicated. This tip solves that problem!

Jak G

Excellent, thanks for explaining those System Settings that affect the keyboard shortcuts. Otherwise, it would be a mystery to me.

Theo Findwall

6 months ago

I want to add a Strikethrough key command for TextEdit, but that choice does not seem to appear in TextEdit's menu bar menus, only in a paragraph style button at the left of TextEdit's formatting toolbar (and it doesn't even show up unless the page is wide enough). I tried using its title ("Struck through") but it was not recognized by the Keyboard Shortcut technique you demonstrate. Any ideas? And many thanks!

Gary Rosenzweig

Theo: I think you may be out of luck there. If it isn't in the Menu Bar, you can't add a keyboard shortcut for it. Maybe consider using Option+Command+C (Format, Font, Copy Style) and then you can use Option+Command+V (Format, Font, Paste Style) instead?