Handy Mac Keyboard Shortcuts for Opening and Saving Files

One of the most common things we see as Mac users is the open/save window.

This window appears, for example, when you open a program like Preview from your Applications folder or your Dock, as the app will want to know what file to use. You’ll also see a box like this one whenever you save a document for the first time; your Mac will often need instructions on where to put the item you’re saving. In any case, though, there are a few Mac keyboard shortcuts you can use within these open/save windows to jump right to a location of your choice. If you’re always saving stuff to your Desktop, these shortcuts will come in handy as a quick way to do so without having to click in Finder’s sidebar or anything like that!

Open and Save Keyboard Shortcuts

When you’re saving or opening a file, just press Command-D on your keyboard to jump to your Desktop in the open/save window.

That’s one of my favorite shortcuts, honestly—I use it many times a day. But in case you have another location you’d prefer to jump to when you’re doing this, there are some more shortcuts you can use:

Shift-Command-H: Jumps to your Home folder
Option-Command-L: Jumps to Downloads
Shift-Command-O: Jumps to Documents

A lot of these shortcuts are the same as the ones available under Finder’s “Go” menu, just so you’re aware…

…but even though Shift-Command-D is listed as the one to access your Desktop there, Command-D works in open/save windows too, and it’s easier to remember. (But know that if you’re not looking at an open/save window—for example, if you’ve just selected a file on your Desktop—Command-D will duplicate whatever you’d selected instead or taking you anywhere.)

Finally, there are a couple more shortcuts for open/save windows that I use pretty often, so maybe you’ll find them to be handy too. The first is Command-Shift-Period, which will show hidden files:

The other one I use is Command-R, which will open the item you’d selected in a new Finder window—cool if you want to peruse the contents of a folder you’d drilled down to outside the confines of an open/save window!

Anytime I have to take my hands off my keyboard and move them to my trackpad, I get a little sadder, and my work gets a little slower. Since sad and slow is no way to go through life, I’m personally a big fan of keyboard shortcuts for speeding up my workflow. I think every Mac user should spend time learning a few!

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