How to use Twitter with keyboard shortcuts

Many Twitter users access the service on their mobile devices and frankly don’t like the Twitter website, but sometimes it’s all you’ve got. We’ve found that the best way to make navigating and tweeting easier is to learn a few keyboard shortcuts.

Over the years, Twitter has changed which keystrokes do what, as well as quietly added new ones. The latest list of keyboard shortcuts below (we’ll make a point to keep them updated) should work in all major browsers.

Actions

The following keyboard shortcuts are helpful for actually using Twitter’s various functions:

• N to compose a new tweet
• Ctrl + Enter to send a tweet
• Escape to exit the compose window, or any other popup (not specific to Twitter, but very handy)
• F to favorite a tweet
• R to reply to a tweet
• T to retweet a tweet
• M to send a direct message
• U to mute a user
• B to block a user
• Enter to open tweet details
• L to close all open tweets

Navigation

The following keyboard shortcuts will help you move around Twitter:

• J to move to the next tweet
• K to move to the previous tweet
• Space to move down a page
• Shift + Space to move up a page
• . to bring up the next set of tweets and take you to the top of the page
• / to go to the Search box

These keyboard are more specific and require hitting two buttons in succession:

• G then H for Home
• G then N for Notifications
• G then A for Activity
• G then R for Mentions
• G then D for Discover
• G then P for Profile
• G then F for Favorites
• G then L for Lists
• G then M for Messages
• G then S for Settings
• G then U for any user’s timeline (pictured above; brings up the “Go to a person’s profile” box where you can type in a person’s name or Twitter handle and hit Enter)

The last group of keyboard shortcuts are easy to remember if you think of them as G for go and the next letter for wherever you want to navigate to (the first one is Go Home).

At any point, if you want to reference the keyboard shortcuts on Twitter, hit Shift + ? to bring up this menu:

It doesn’t include every simple keyboard shortcuts for Twitter, but almost all of them are there. If we’re missing a keyboard shortcut from our list, please let us know.

See also: How to use Facebook with keyboard shortcuts