Windows 11: 15 useful keyboard shortcuts

Working with Windows 11 is easier when you know one to five keyboard shortcuts. You’ll be able to perform tasks and work with apps faster without fiddling with the mouse and trackpad (or even taking your eyes off the screen).

Loupe

Want to see something on your screen at a larger scale?  Hold down Win and then press + to launch the Magnifier utility. You can then press the same keyboard shortcut again to continue zooming in, or use Win and — (the minus key) to zoom out.

Win (the minus key).

View apps on desktops

Windows 11 lets you set up multiple desktops to separate programs – personal and work, for example – and the Win + Tab keyboard shortcut acts in much the same way as Alt + Tab, switching all applications across all desktops.

Access Clipboard History

The old keyboard shortcut «Paste» Ctrl + V is now news. All the cool kids have switched to Win + V, which opens the Windows 11 clipboard history panel. From there, you can copy any of the last 25 items that were copied or cut to the clipboard.

Show Windows Desktop

There are plenty of reasons to quickly go to the desktop and minimize all open windows – perhaps the boss is walking by, or you want to buy a gift for a loved one and they’ve just gotten home. All you have to do is press Win + D.

Update webpage

If you have a series of function keys attached to your keyboard, you can press F5 to refresh the web page you are currently viewing in any Windows 11 browser, so there is no need to click the refresh icon on the toolbar.

If the function keys perform a dual function on your keyboard (such as playing media and turning up the volume), you’ll also need the Fn key to make sure the function keys take precedence. Some keyboards require you to hold down the Fn key, while others require you to press Fn to turn the function keys on and off.

Return tab

Don’t panic if you accidentally close a web browser tab that you really need, because the combination Ctrl + Shift + T will bring it back. Keep clicking on it to bring back more tabs from your browsing history.

Here’s what you can do.

Zoom in or zoom out

There’s another option for zooming: hold down the Ctrl + Alt key, and then press the + (plus) key to zoom in or the — (minus) key to zoom out. This keyboard shortcut is useful because it works in many different applications, including virtually any web browser and Windows 11 Explorer, where it zooms in and out of icon thumbnails.

  (plus) to zoom in or out.

Continue scrolling

Once you master zooming, you can also scroll. Pressing Space will scroll page by page in almost all existing web browsers. If you want to go the other direction, use Shift + Spacebar.

Use apps in full-screen mode

Windows 11 can run apps in full-screen mode, just like macOS, but it’s not obvious how to do so – the option doesn’t appear among the icons in the top-right corner of each window. F11 — it’s the right keyboard shortcut, allowing you to focus on one app at a time.

Go straight to the «Start»

menu.

The «Start» menu — is the starting point for everything in Windows 11, and Ctrl + Esc will take you right there. There is also a “secret” menu «Start» with links to key areas of the operating system that you can access using Win + X.

Take a screenshot in Windows 11

If you want to skip the cropping tool that appears when you click PrtSc, use Win + PrtSc. It sends a PNG image of the entire screen to your images folder (inside screenshots) and copies it to the clipboard. Use Alt + PrtSc to simply capture the currently active window, and then use Ctrl-V to paste it into your document.

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File Explorer Navigation

If you’re using File Explorer to browse files, keyboard shortcuts can help here too. Use backspace or Alt + Left to go to a previously viewed folder, Alt + Right to go back in the other direction, and Alt + Up to go to the original folder.

Skip the cart

If you want to make sure something is actually deleted and not hanging in the trash for days before deleting it, use the combination Shift + Delete in Explorer by selecting the appropriate files.

Rename one or more files

F2 really useful for renaming files in Explorer. If you have multiple files selected (Ctrl + click) or all files in a selected folder (Ctrl + A), you can press F2 to give them all the same name with sequence numbers attached.

Cancel

Ctrl + Z to undo the last action —one of the best-known keyboard shortcuts, but not everyone knows that you can use Ctrl + Y to go back the other way – to undo an undo or multiple undos if it happened. This is very handy for the undecided.