If you use Excel frequently, you know how much time keyboard shortcuts can save. While these shortcuts make many tasks easier, it can take time to learn and master them all. That's where a handy "cheat sheet" can be a game changer. In this article, we'll review the most useful Mac Excel shortcuts, organized into a simple table for quick reference.
Some of the basic keyboard shortcuts for Excel are the same on a Mac or PC, but most shortcuts, especially the more complex ones, are mapped differently for Excel on macOS.
NOTE: Many basic Windows shortcuts, like CTRL+V for paste or CTRL+O to open a worksheet, can be executed on a Mac by pressing ⌘ ("command") instead of CTRL.
In this section, we'll show a few of the most commonly-used macOS keyboard shortcuts. These shortcuts can help you boost your productivity while working in Excel.
The following table contains some useful Excel keyboard shortcuts for macOS:
| Functionality | Shortcut |
|---|---|
| Edit current cell | control+U |
| Cut | ⌘+X |
| Paste | ⌘+V |
| Fill down | ⌘+D |
| Fill right | ⌘+R |
| Duplicate from cell above | ⌘+D |
| Duplicate from cell to the left | ⌘+D |
| Select the entire row | shift+space |
| Select the entire column | control+space |
| Duplicate from cell to the left | ⌘+D |
| Format cells window | ⌘+1 |
| Save workbook | ⌘+S |
| Open workbook | ⌘+O |
| Close workbook | ⌘+W |
| Redo | ⌘+Y |
| Undo | ⌘+Z |
| Hide selected column | ⌘+0 |
| Hide selected row | ⌘+9 |
| Show hidden column | ⌘+shift+0 |
| Show hidden row | ⌘+shift+9 |
| Find & replace | ⌘+shift+H |
| Display emoji window | ⌘+control+space |
| Display insert cell window | ⌘+shift+= |
| Display formula builder window | shift+fn+F3 |
| Decrease font size of selected | ⌘+shift+< |
| Increase font size of selected | ⌘+shift+< |
| Change format to numerical | control+shift+! |
This section will cover some of the most useful Excel keyboard shortcuts for a Mac. Keep in mind that these shortcuts were tested on the 2016 version of Microsoft Excel.
Press the fn+shift+F11 keys simultaneously to create a new sheet for your workbook on a Mac.
HINT: You can also hold down the option (⌥) key and navigate to different sheets in your workbook by pressing the arrow keys.
To delete, or shift, a row up, you can press control+- or ⌘+U on a Mac.
You can also use the shortcut shown above to insert an entire row. To do this, you'll need to make sure to select the entire row first, or else it will simply shift the current cell or column down.
In Windows, you can press F4 to change a cell's default reference from relative to absolute. Excel inserts the $ symbol before the columns and rows for a referenced cell or range. On a Mac, however, you'll need to press ⌘ and T together to accomplish this while editing a cell.
On a Mac, you can press ⌘+shift+X (or CTRL+5 in Windows) to strikethrough a cell or range of cells in an Excel spreadsheet.
In most macOS applications, the paste shortcut is ⌘+V, and Excel is no different. If you'd like to strip all formatting from your clipboard before pasting its contents into a cell, you'll have to press control+U to edit the cell contents. After you make your changes, press ⌘+V.
To paste the contents of your clipboard with a special format such as Unicode or formula values, simply press control+option+V.
If you'd like to bring up the window for inserting formulas, just hold down the control and option keys while also pressing the down arrow key.
If you press control and the ` grave accent mark key, you can toggle the contents of your cells between values and the formulas that render the values. This shortcut can be useful to understand how a sheet functions and calculates relative values for its respective cells.
To insert a =SUM() formula into a cell so that the current cell adds up all the numeric values in a column, just press the ⌘+shift+T key combination.
NOTE: This shortcut will return an error if the selected column doesn't contain numeric values.
Using keyboard shortcuts can help you work more quickly and efficiently in Microsoft Excel, but you might face a bit of a learning curve if you're just getting started. In this article, we've provided a list of commonly-used Excel shortcuts that can be used on a Mac. With our handy cheat sheet as a reference, you'll be ready to start using keyboard shortcuts and speed up your Excel tasks.
