The Mac FN (Globe) Key: Everything It Can Do

The FN or Globe Key on your Mac keyboard is a modifier key that can do some special things. In addition to controlling how the F1-F19 keys work, it can also be used as a single keypress to trigger some actions, and with some letter keys to give you keyboard shortcuts to some powerful functions.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at the fn or Globe Key on your Mac keyboard and everything that it can do.
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So on your Mac keyboard you've got a key that either is labeled fn or has both fn and a little globe symbol on it. Apple is now calling this the Globe Key or just using that symbol to represent that key. But it is the same, if you have an older keyboard, just use the fn key instead. On small Mac keyboards, like on MacBooks, you'll find it at the lower left corner. On the larger keyboards that have a numeric keypad you're going to find it in the middle grouped together with the page Up and page Down, Home and End keys.
Now this is a modifier key much like Command, Control, Option, and Shift. But it works in a different way than those other keys. For one thing you can also press it and release quickly to use it as a normal trigger for something. You also have a variety of keyboard shortcuts that you could use by holding this fn or Globe Key and then pressing a letter. 
Let's start off by using it with the function keys. So the function keys are the ones at the top of your keyboard. Unless you've got a Touch Bar you've got a row of keys there labeled F1, F2, F3 and so on. There are also some special feature symbols on there like Screen Brightness and Volume Controls. Now if we go to System Settings and then look under Keyboard, then go to Keyboard Shortcuts there is a listing here on the left for Function Keys. The only setting there is a Switch and this determines how those keys are used in conjunction with the fn or Globe Key. So with this turned Off then those keys work by default with special features. For instance, the F1 key will lower screen brightness. However if I turn this On then the F1 key sends the F1 signal to whatever app you're using. So an app may use F1 as a keyboard shortcut for something. In this case if this is On you would hold the fn or Globe key down to get it to behave as if it were Off. If this were Off you would hold the fn or Globe key down to get it to behave like it was On. A lot of people don't use these F keys for any kind of keyboard shortcuts at all. So having this turned On all the time makes sense so you have quick access to things like Volume Control at the top of your keyboard. But either way you can toggle to be the opposite using this fn key. 
So in addition to acting as a modifier for that top row of function keys the fn key can work on its own to do certain things. You've got that setting right here in Keyboard where we were before, on my Mac it says Press fn key to, on your Mac it may show the Globe symbol there. Then I can change what it does. I can it switch between Input Sources. So, for instance, if I switch between say English and another language on my keyboard it can switch between those. I can have it show the Emoji & Symbols Viewer. I can have it Start Dictation. You actually have to press the key twice really quickly to do that and I can turn it Off. So press fn key by itself will do nothing. If you have it set to these first two you press and release. You don't hold it down for any amount of time. 
Now since the fn key is a modifier key you can change how it works completely by going to Keyboard Shortcuts here and then going to Modifier Keys. Here you've got a list of all your modifier keys including Caps Lock. You can change what they do. So, for instance, if you wanted to switch Control for Command you could do that by changing Control to Command and Command to Control. But you also have the Function Key here. You can set that up to be another Control, Option, or Command Key. You could set it up to trigger Escape. Or you have it do nothing at all. One really useful thing to do here is if you don't use the Caps Lock key, like I don't, and you want to have an extra fn key, I can change Caps Lock to actually be a second fn key. 
Now there is one more place you can go in System Settings and do something with the fn key. That is to go to Desktop & Dock. All the way at the bottom you'll find Mission Control and there are shortcuts for Mission Control. Go into here and you can access some things that aren't available in the regular keyboard settings. Here I can set Mission Control, for instance, to be a variety of different keys including F keys if I want. But one of the keys I can set it to is the fn key. So, I could do this for any of these. If I want Application Windows, also known as App Expose, to be the fn key I can. I can set it down here and then use fn to trigger that. 
Now in addition to those there are some keyboard shortcuts you can use with the fn key. So, for instance, if I were to use fn and n it will bring up the Notification Center. Doing it again will Dismiss it. I can also bring up Control Center with fn and c. Although it is not as useful because you really can't control anything here with the keyboard. So you still have to switch to your Mouse or Trackpad to interact with this. You can also use fn and Shift and a. This is the only keyboard shortcut that requires another modifier key with the fn key. This will bring up Launchpad. You can do the same thing to Dismiss it. Remember that with Launchpad you don't have to actually use the trackpad or mouse for anything. You can simply type the name of the app when you get it singled down to that one. You can press Return and launch that app. 
So you can launch any app using this keyboard shortcut and simply typing in Launchpad. It is similar to, but actually faster, than using Spotlight since this doesn't do anything except launch apps. 
Now if you ever want to get to the Desktop you can use the F11 key to do that. Depending on your settings you can also click on the Desktop background to do it in macOS Sonoma. But there is also the fn and h. Think of it as h for hide to hide everything. You can use it again to reverse it. 
Also for an app window, of course, you probably know you can go to the Green button here and Enter Full Screen. You can also go to View and Enter Full Screen and notice the keyboard shortcut here is fn and f. So you can use fn and f to go into Full Screen Mode. So this creates separate space for this one window. You can use fn and f to get out of it. 
You can also use fn and q for Quick Note. This will launch Notes, if it is not already launched, and create a new Quick Note or go to the current Quick Note that you are working with. When you're typing and want to type an emoji or special character you probably know you can use Control, Command and Space to bring up the Emoji & Special Character Viewer. But you can also do it with fn and e. As you saw before there is a way to set it up so just pressing fn would bring this up. If you want to start dictation then you can use fn and d and dictate text and then use fn and d to turn it Off.  
If you have the big keyboard with a numeric keypad like I do then you have Page Up, Page Down, Home and End. But if you don't have that you can simulate it using fn key. Just fn and down is Page Down, fn and Up is Page Up, fn and the right arrow is End and fn and the left arrow is Home. Of course how those work depends on what the App you're using does with those special keys. 
Now, of course, on any Mac Keyboard you have a Delete key at the top right. That will backspace and delete the character before the text cursor. If you want to forward Delete, well if you've got a Numeric Keyboard there is a Forward Delete button. If you don't you can use fn and the Delete key and it will delete the character ahead of the cursor. 
Here's one last thing the fn key will do. If you use fn and a it will move focus to the Dock. Notice how suddenly the Finder at the bottom left is selected. I can now use the arrow keys to move around and the spacebar to launch an app. Note that if you have Dock hiding turned On so it's only there if you move your pointer to the bottom of the screen, then fn and a will reveal the Dock as well as bringing the keyboard focus there. You can also use the Up Arrow and go into the Menu for each individual app. So it is really handy that you can do fn and a and see how it resumes with Reminders selected, like I had before. But if I press the L key it will jump to the first icon there that has the name that begins with L. So Launchpad. Now I can use Up Arrow and it will go to the Launchpad Menu which gives me an alphabetical list of all apps. So now if I do F it will jump to the section with apps that start with F and I can navigate from there and press space or Return to select something and launch an app. 
You can do an awful lot of keyboard navigation using the fn and the a key and then the arrow keys and the letter keys to move around in the Dock and get a lot done. You can even use Home and n and Page Up and Page Down to move around inside of the Dock as well as different letters. So there is a ton of stuff you can do if you put the right things in the Dock, the apps that you need, and maybe some files and folders to the right. You can accomplish quite a bit with this that may not otherwise seem possible to do easily with just the keyboard. 
So there is a look at some of the things that the fn or Globe Key can do for you. Hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 12 Responses to “The Mac FN (Globe) Key: Everything It Can Do”

John

9 months ago

Wow! Lots of very good material here. I will have to watch it multiple times to get the ideas down that most apply to me.

William Prusak

8 months ago

Hi Gary,

I watch and learn often with you're expert advise.

Thank you Sir

Paul Thompson

This was really helpful Garry. I HATE the caps lock key because I often hit it when I want to type A. Now you've made my life better!. Also the other uses for the fn key are very useful. I'll study your post to learn much more. Thanks a Million Garry!

Robert Dettman

Not much that's helpful for me, Gary. Perhaps it's because I have learned the Apple default methods over the years that are quick and effective for me. Accessing Emoji and the Globe plus arrow keys - really good. As for using it to access the dock, that seems so convoluted and slow. I use the mouse and access what I want in a flash.

Sorry to be negative, but I usually like your advice, so thanks for your ongoing support of the community.

John Cooper

Great tips.

Interestingly, switching the Caps Lock key with the Globe key works on my 2022 MacBook Pro’s built-in keyboard, but not on the Bluetooth-connected Apple Magic Keyboard (model A1843, without Touch ID), even after a restart. Something for those who use laptops in clamshell mode to check for.

Jerry Coleman

I sure wish the Delete and Backspace keys on my MacBook Air were separate instead of having to use the fn key for Delete. I'd love to be able to remap, say the Caps Lock key, to one of them. Pretty much my only gripe about Mac laptops.

John MacKenzie

A very useful video, Gary. Thank you.

Carl Younger

6 months ago

The old Karabiner let you use Shift+Shift (hold one, then tap the other) to toggle CapsLock, so you could easily lock caps if you wanted to, but never by accident. It also freed up the CapsLock key for whatever else. I miss that.

P.S. Nice post. It's super useful information that almost nobody knows.

You can also use fn with Enter to access the Return key from the numpad. Return can be bound to whatever you like (distinct from the Enter key), and you can still use other modifiers (for example, tapping fn+Shift+Enter to input something bound to Shift+Return).

Sheldon

Thanks bunches

Don J J Carroll

2 months ago

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 10:05 AM - Can the Globe key be used to toggle my Desktop items off and on? I now use a 3rd party App called HIDE to do this but sometimes it does not work like it used to on previous Mac OS versions.

Gary Rosenzweig

Don: Which items? Do you mean the files and folders on your Desktop? You can do that with a Terminal command, so you could make a Shortcut in the Shortcuts app to do it and then assign it to a keyboard shortcut sequence. But unfortunately the Terminal command needs to restart the Finder for that to take effect. While that is fine to do occasionally I wouldn't do it so frequently that you need a keyboard shortcut. I find that restarting the Finder doesn't always go smoothly and can sometimes result in problems.
So maybe another solution to your problem? What is your problem, exactly? If you sometimes want the Desktop to not have files on it, maybe consider not using the Desktop as a location for files at all.

The Mac FN (Globe) Key: Everything It Can Do

Comments: 12 Responses to “The Mac FN (Globe) Key: Everything It Can Do”

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