Quickly view available keyboard shortcuts in any iPad app [Pro tip]

Quickly view available keyboard shortcuts in any iPad app [Pro tip]

Speed up common tasks inside your favorite apps.
Image: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

iPad has gotten better and better at working with external keyboards in recent years. You’ll now find great support for keyboard shortcuts in most of the apps you use regularly. But how do you quickly find out which keyboard shortcuts are available to you?

There’s an easy way in iPadOS — and it works inside any app.

Some keyboard shortcuts — like copy and paste, for example — work throughout iPadOS no matter which app you’re using. But others were designed to do specific things inside individual apps, and once you’re used to them, they can greatly speed up common tasks.

The problem is finding out about all those keyboard shortcuts. You could trawl through online guides or try to find out if the app’s developer has published instructions. Or you could use a nifty feature on your iPad that displays all the keyboard shortcuts available to you.

See available keyboard shortcuts on iPad

To view available keyboard shortcuts in any app, simply hold down the Command (⌘) key on your iPad’s keyboard for a few seconds. You’ll then see an overlay on screen, like the one in the GIF below, that lists all the shortcuts you can use in the app you have open.

Note that these keyboard shortcuts will change depending on the app you’re using. And in some cases where lots of shortcuts are available — like in Safari — the on-screen overlay will include more than one page. Keep the Command key pressed while you swipe between them.

Keep the Command key pressed while you swipe between pages.
GIF: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

What’s great about this trick is that it means you don’t need to try to memorize your favorite shortcuts all at once because you can hold down the Command key at any time for a reminder when you need it.