Grammarly Keyboard Shortcuts
Grammarly's shortcuts are scoped to interacting with its suggestion system rather than text editing itself, since it operates as an overlay on top of whatever app you're actually typing in — a browser text field, Word, or its own dedicated editor. The most useful bindings let you accept or dismiss a suggestion without reaching for the mouse, which matters because Grammarly's underline-and-popup interaction model would otherwise constantly interrupt a keyboard-driven writing flow. Windows uses Ctrl/Alt, Mac uses Cmd/Option, with the core suggestion-acceptance shortcuts matching closely between platforms. Non-native English speakers writing professional emails and students polishing essays before submission are Grammarly's core audience, and for both groups the actual value delivered has less to do with keyboard shortcuts than with the underlying suggestion quality itself — the shortcuts covered here exist mainly to reduce the friction of staying in a keyboard-driven writing flow while still benefiting from Grammarly's suggestions, rather than being a deep, memorization-worthy shortcut system in its own right the way a code editor's shortcuts would be. Grammarly's Premium tier adds generative rewriting features like full-sentence Rephrase and a broader plagiarism-detection scan, both of which sit conceptually apart from the underline-and-fix suggestion model the free tier relies on, and neither is bound to a dedicated keyboard shortcut since both are treated as deliberate, occasional actions rather than something triggered dozens of times per paragraph the way accepting a grammar fix is.
Suggestions
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accept the current suggestion | Alt+Enter (varies by integration) | Option+Return | Accepts whichever Grammarly suggestion is currently focused or highlighted, applying the fix without clicking the suggestion popup directly. |
| Dismiss current suggestion | Esc | Esc | Closes the currently open suggestion popup without applying its fix, useful for suggestions you've judged not applicable to your intended meaning or style. |
| Open Grammarly sidebar/panel | Ctrl+Alt+G (varies by integration) | Cmd+Option+G | Opens the main Grammarly panel showing a fuller overview of suggestions, score, and document-level feedback, beyond the inline underline-and-popup interaction. |
| Jump to next suggestion | No universal default — varies by integration | Same | Cycling through suggestions sequentially without manually clicking each underline isn't consistently bound across all of Grammarly's integrations, since the underlying text field's own keyboard handling varies by host application. |
| Highlight clarity issues specifically | Filter suggestions panel by category (no keyboard shortcut) | Same | Filters the suggestions panel to show only clarity-related issues (like overly long sentences or passive voice) rather than every category of suggestion at once, useful when you want to focus on one specific type of improvement during a particular editing pass. |
| Request a full-sentence rephrase | Click Rephrase button in suggestion popup (no keyboard shortcut) | Same | Requests an AI-generated alternative phrasing for an entire flagged sentence rather than a single-word fix, part of Grammarly's generative rewriting features that go beyond traditional grammar correction into full sentence restructuring. |
| Snooze Grammarly on current page | Click extension icon > Pause on this site (no shortcut) | Same | Temporarily disables suggestion checking specifically for the currently active website or tab, distinct from fully uninstalling or globally disabling the extension, useful for sites where Grammarly's underlines interfere with a specialized text field like a code snippet input. |
Grammarly Editor
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Create new document (Grammarly Editor) | Ctrl+N | Cmd+N | Within Grammarly's own standalone web editor (as opposed to the browser extension overlay), creates a new blank document. |
| Bold selected text (Grammarly Editor) | Ctrl+B | Cmd+B | Applies bold formatting within Grammarly's own document editor, standard rich-text behavior for documents created directly inside Grammarly rather than another host app. |
| View word/character count | No keyboard shortcut — shown in editor footer | Same | Word and character counts are displayed persistently in the editor's footer area rather than requiring a keyboard shortcut to reveal them. |
| Run plagiarism check | Click Plagiarism tab in editor sidebar (Premium only, no shortcut) | Same | Scans the current document against a large web and academic database for matching text, a Premium-only feature typically used before submitting an academic paper or published article. |
| Italicize selected text (Grammarly Editor) | Ctrl+I | Cmd+I | Applies italic formatting within Grammarly's own standalone document editor, standard rich-text behavior consistent with most word processors. |
Tone Goals
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Set writing goals (audience, formality, tone) | No keyboard shortcut — click Set Goals button | Same | Configuring Grammarly's writing goals — intended audience, formality level, domain, and tone — is done through a dedicated settings panel accessed by clicking Set Goals, not a keyboard-triggered action. |
| Toggle tone detector display | Settings toggle (no keyboard shortcut) | Same | Enables or disables the small tone indicator (like 'confident' or 'friendly') that Grammarly displays based on the detected emotional tone of your writing, a feature some users find useful and others prefer to disable to reduce visual clutter. |
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do Grammarly's shortcuts vary by integration?
Grammarly works as an overlay across many different host environments — a browser extension active inside Gmail, Google Docs, or any text field, the Grammarly desktop app, an MS Word add-in, and its own standalone editor — and each host environment has its own existing keyboard shortcut conventions Grammarly must avoid conflicting with, so its exact bindings aren't perfectly uniform everywhere it runs.
Does accepting a suggestion with the keyboard work the same as clicking it?
Functionally yes, when the shortcut is supported in that particular integration — it applies the exact same text correction either way. The main practical difference is workflow speed: keyboard acceptance avoids breaking your typing flow to reach for the mouse, which matters most for writers processing many suggestions in a long document.
Can Grammarly suggestions be turned off temporarily without disabling the whole extension?
Yes, most integrations include a way to pause Grammarly for the current site or document temporarily from its extension icon menu, distinct from fully disabling the extension — useful for situations like writing in a code editor field where grammar suggestions aren't relevant and would be distracting, without losing your settings for normal writing contexts.
Does Grammarly work offline, or does every suggestion require an active internet connection?
Grammarly's suggestion engine relies on cloud-based processing for most of its grammar and style analysis, meaning an active internet connection is generally required for suggestions to appear at all — writing entirely offline in a supported app will typically resume generating suggestions once connectivity returns, but no meaningful analysis happens while fully disconnected.
Can I use Grammarly's premium features through the free keyboard shortcuts, or are some suggestions gated behind a paywall?
The keyboard shortcuts themselves work identically regardless of subscription tier, but which suggestions actually appear differs significantly — free accounts get basic grammar and spelling checks, while advanced style, clarity, tone, and plagiarism-detection suggestions are gated behind Grammarly Premium, meaning the shortcut for accepting a suggestion is available either way, just applied to a smaller pool of suggestions on a free account.
Why do accept/dismiss keyboard shortcuts sometimes not work inside certain web apps?
Some web applications capture and handle their own keyboard events in a way that can prevent Grammarly's browser extension from intercepting the same key combination, particularly in apps built with complex custom text editors (like certain rich-text CMS editors) — clicking the suggestion directly with the mouse remains a reliable fallback in any environment where the keyboard shortcut doesn't register.
Does Grammarly's desktop app work independently of a browser, or does it still need one running?
The Grammarly desktop app functions as its own standalone floating overlay that can attach to text fields in many native desktop applications (not just browsers), operating independently of whether a browser is even open, which extends its suggestion capability to native apps like certain email clients or word processors beyond what the browser extension alone could reach.
What does the Rephrase feature do differently from accepting a normal suggestion?
A normal suggestion typically fixes a specific, narrow issue — a misspelled word, a subject-verb agreement error — while Rephrase generates an entirely reworded version of a full sentence using generative AI, aimed at improving flow or concision more broadly rather than correcting one isolated grammatical mistake, and it's offered as a distinct button within the suggestion popup rather than through the same accept shortcut.