Top 10 Chrome Keyboard Shortcuts You Should Know

One of the easiest ways to speed up your workflow is by memorizing a handful of keyboard shortcuts. Below are the top ten Chrome shortcuts that every power user should have in their toolkit.

1. Jump Straight to Any Tab: Ctrl + Number.

Press Ctrl + 1 through Ctrl + 8 to jump directly to that tab’s position in your tab strip. Ctrl + 9 always sends you to the last tab, regardless of how many tabs you have open.

2. Move Tabs Without Dragging: Ctrl + Shift + PgUp/ PgDn

Dragging with your mouse is slow and requires you to move your hand from the keyboard. So, you can try this:

Ctrl + Shift + PgUp moves the current tab one position to the left.

Ctrl + Shift + PgDn moves it one position to the right.

3. Open a New Tab / Close the Current Tab: Ctrl + T, Ctrl + W

These two shortcuts go hand in hand, so we’ve included them together. 

Ctrl + T opens a fresh blank tab.

Ctrl + W closes the tab you’re currently on.

You can also undo closing a tab by pressing Ctrl + Shift + T to reopen the last tab you closed.

4. Toggle the Bookmarks Bar: Ctrl + Shift + B

Show or hide the bookmarks bar under the address bar. It's not a huge change, but it protects your privacy when you take a screenshot or do something like that.

Use case: Keep frequently visited sites (Gmail, Drive, Docs) in view when you need them, hide them when you don’t.

5. Jump to the Address Bar: Ctrl + L

Moves your cursor to the omnibox (address/search bar) and highlights all text, ready for a new URL or search.

Alternative keys: Alt + D also works.

6. Chrome’s Built-in Task Manager: Shift + Esc

Opens Chrome’s own Task Manager, where each tab and extension shows its memory and CPU usage. Select any entry and click End task to stop a runaway tab or extension.

7. Instantly Clear Your Browsing History: Ctrl + Shift + Del

Pressing Ctrl + Shift + Del will open the Clear browsing data dialog, so you can wipe history, cookies, cached images, and more. It's super handy that you can clean your internet activity without navigating Chrome's various menus.

8. Search Google: Ctrl + K

Pressing Ctrl + K to perform a search using your default search engine by placing your cursor in the address bar. You can just type your search query after the shortcut activates. 

9. Open a New Incognito Window: Ctrl + Shift + N

Ctrl + Shift + N launches a private browsing window where your history, cookies, and site data aren’t saved after you close it.

10. Scroll the Page: Fn + Up / Down / Left / Right

On many laptops, holding the Fn key plus the arrow keys scrolls the page up, down, left, or right.

Conclusion

Take minutes today to practice them, and you'll navigate Chrome with ease. It's not the common Chrome shortcuts that make it feel faster or smarter; it's these lesser-known Chrome shortcuts that do that.