Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts You're Probably Not Using (But Should)

Most people learn a few browser shortcuts and stop there. Here's a more complete list of Firefox shortcuts that actually save time — organized by category, with notes on the non-obvious ones.

Navigation

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+L / Alt+D	Focus address bar
Ctrl+K	Focus search bar (or address bar in search mode)
Ctrl+T	New tab
Ctrl+W	Close current tab
Ctrl+Shift+T	Reopen last closed tab
Ctrl+Shift+Tab	Previous tab
Ctrl+Tab	Next tab
Ctrl+1-8	Jump to tab by position
Ctrl+9	Jump to last tab
Ctrl+N	New window
Ctrl+Shift+N	New private window

The one people miss: Ctrl+Shift+T can be pressed multiple times to reopen several recently-closed tabs in reverse order. You can recover a whole session's worth of tabs this way.

Address Bar Tricks

The address bar (Ctrl+L) has search modes activated by keyword:

Type this	Then search	Does
@bookmarks	search term	Search only bookmarks
@history	search term	Search only history
@tabs	tab title	Switch to open tab
* + space	search term	Search bookmarks only
^ + space	search term	Search history only
% + space	search term	Search open tabs only

These modifiers let you quickly find something in a specific source. % your tab title is faster than scrolling through many open tabs.

Page Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
F5 / Ctrl+R	Reload
Ctrl+Shift+R	Hard reload (bypass cache)
Ctrl+F	Find in page
Ctrl+G	Find next
Ctrl+Shift+G	Find previous
Ctrl++ / Ctrl+-	Zoom in/out
Ctrl+0	Reset zoom
F11	Full screen
Space	Scroll down
Shift+Space	Scroll up
Home / End	Top/bottom of page

Non-obvious: Ctrl+Shift+R bypasses both the browser cache and CDN cache. If you're a developer troubleshooting a caching issue, this is what you want (not just Ctrl+R).

DevTools

Shortcut	Action
F12 / Ctrl+Shift+I	Toggle DevTools
Ctrl+Shift+K	Open console directly
Ctrl+Shift+C	Inspector (element picker)
Ctrl+Shift+M	Responsive design mode
Ctrl+Shift+S	Style editor
Ctrl+Shift+P	Performance profiler
Shift+F2	Style editor (from DevTools)
F1	DevTools settings

In the console: $0 refers to the currently selected element in the inspector. $$('selector') is shorthand for document.querySelectorAll.

Tab Group / Multi-Window

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Shift+W	Close all tabs / close window
Alt+Left/Right	Back/forward in history
Alt+Home	Go to homepage
Ctrl+D	Bookmark current page
Ctrl+Shift+D	Bookmark all open tabs

Ctrl+Shift+D bookmarks every open tab into a new folder. Useful for saving a session to bookmarks before closing Firefox, though for named session saving, the Tab Manager & Session Saver extension is more flexible (lets you name sessions and restore them without replacing your current tabs).

Reader View

Shortcut	Action
F9	Toggle Reader View (on compatible pages)
Ctrl+Shift+R in Reader	See note below

Reader View strips ads and navigation, leaving just article text. Useful for reading-focused pages. In Reader View, Aa in the toolbar lets you change font, size, and color scheme.

Note: Not all pages support Reader View. It only appears on pages Firefox detects as article-format content.

Customizing Shortcuts

Firefox doesn't have a built-in shortcut customizer, but you can override with:

1. about:config — some shortcuts map to config keys (less common)
2. Extensions like Shortkeys — assign custom keyboard shortcuts to browser actions

Extensions can also add their own shortcuts, configurable via about:addons → Extensions → [extension] → three-dot menu → Manage Extension Shortcuts.

The Most Useful Ones in Practice

If you're only going to learn a few beyond the basics:

1. Ctrl+Shift+T — reopen closed tab (multiple presses reopen multiple tabs)
2. % space in address bar — find an open tab by title
3. Ctrl+Shift+R — hard reload (bypass cache)
4. Ctrl+Shift+I — toggle DevTools from anywhere
5. Ctrl+9 — jump to last tab

These five are the ones most people use daily once they know them.