Salesforce Keyboard Shortcuts
Salesforce's keyboard shortcuts live specifically inside the Lightning Console app rather than the standard Lightning Experience UI, which trips up a lot of admins who enable shortcuts expecting them to work everywhere and then can't find them outside a console-style workspace tab. Because Salesforce is heavily customized org to org, the shortcut set itself stays deliberately generic — moving between open console tabs, saving records, and navigating list views — rather than anything tied to specific objects or custom fields, since those vary wildly between different companies' implementations. Shortcuts must also be explicitly enabled per user in Setup before they do anything at all, unlike most software where keyboard shortcuts work by default. Sales and support reps who spend their entire day inside a Console-style workspace, flipping between a dozen open case or opportunity tabs at once, get disproportionately more value from this shortcut set than the average Salesforce user who mostly views a handful of records per day, which is part of why so many admins configure Console apps specifically for high-volume roles like inside sales or tier-one support while leaving standard Lightning pages as the default for occasional users.
Console Navigation
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Go to next console tab | Alt+Right Arrow (Console app) | Option+Right Arrow | Moves to the next open workspace tab within the Console app's tabbed interface, letting agents cycle through several open records without clicking each tab. |
| Go to previous console tab | Alt+Left Arrow | Option+Left Arrow | Moves to the previous open workspace tab, the reverse companion to the next-tab shortcut. |
| Close current console tab | Ctrl+Alt+W | Cmd+Option+W | Closes the active workspace tab in the Console app, distinct from a browser tab close and scoped only to the internal Salesforce tab strip. |
| Focus global search | Alt+/ | Option+/ | Sends keyboard focus straight into the global search box sitting at the top of the org, ready to query across every searchable object type without first clicking into that field manually. |
Record Actions
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Save current record | Ctrl+S (Console app, shortcuts enabled) | Cmd+S | Saves the currently open record being edited, only functional inside the Console app with keyboard shortcuts explicitly enabled in Setup. |
| Save and create new | Alt+S | Option+S | Saves the current record and immediately opens a blank form for creating another one of the same object type, useful for rapid sequential data entry like logging several calls in a row. |
| Cancel current edit | Alt+X | Option+X | Discards unsaved changes to the record currently being edited and returns to its read-only view. |
| Edit current record | E | E | Switches the currently viewed record into edit mode when no input field is focused, letting you begin editing without clicking the Edit button. |
| Create new record of current object type | Ctrl+Alt+N (varies by org) | Cmd+Option+N | Opens a blank creation form for a new record of whatever object type the current console tab is displaying, saving a trip to the object's list view just to click the New button. |
| Open Quick Action menu | Q (record view, no field focused) | Q | Opens the record's configured Quick Actions menu, exposing shortcuts an admin has set up for that object, like logging a call or sending a templated email, without scrolling to find the corresponding button in the page layout. |
| Jump to a related list on a record | R then list-specific letter (varies by org) | R then letter | Scrolls the current record page directly to a specific related list, such as Activities or Contacts on an Account, skipping the need to manually scroll down a potentially long record detail page to find it. |
List Views
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Refresh current list view | Ctrl+Alt+R (varies by org config) | Cmd+Option+R | Reloads the currently displayed list view's data without a full page reload, useful after another user or automation has updated records you're viewing. |
| Select all rows in list view | Ctrl+A (with list view focused) | Cmd+A | Selects every visible row in the current list view page, commonly used before a bulk action like mass edit or mass email. |
| Switch to a different list view | No default shortcut — dropdown selector | Same | Switching between different saved list views for an object (like moving from 'My Open Cases' to 'All Cases This Week') is done through the list view dropdown selector rather than a bound keyboard shortcut. |
Frequently Asked Questions
Why don't any keyboard shortcuts work in my Salesforce org at all?
Keyboard shortcuts in Salesforce are opt-in per user and must be turned on under the user's personal Setup settings (Setup > search 'Keyboard Shortcuts' or via the user's own Settings menu depending on org configuration). Unlike most software, they're disabled by default, so an org where no one has enabled them will show zero shortcut behavior even though the feature exists.
Do these shortcuts work outside the Console app, in standard Lightning Experience?
Most of the console-specific navigation shortcuts (tab switching, tab closing) only function inside Console apps, which use a distinct tabbed workspace UI. Standard Lightning Experience record pages support a smaller subset, primarily the record-editing shortcuts like Save and Edit, but not the tab-cycling ones since standard pages don't have the same tab strip.
Why do shortcut keys sometimes conflict with my browser's own shortcuts?
Because Salesforce runs entirely inside the browser, some of its shortcuts (particularly Alt-based ones) can collide with browser or OS-level menu shortcuts depending on the browser and OS combination, especially on Windows where Alt often triggers menu bar focus. Salesforce's own documentation acknowledges this and recommends testing shortcuts in your specific browser rather than assuming universal behavior.
Can an admin roll out keyboard shortcuts to an entire team at once, or does every user have to enable it individually?
The setting is stored per user, so by default each person has to enable it in their own personal settings, though an admin can use a Permission Set or profile-level default combined with a rollout communication to encourage or standardize adoption across a team — Salesforce doesn't offer a single org-wide toggle that forces it on for everyone simultaneously.
Does creating a new record with the keyboard shortcut respect the same required-field validation as clicking the New button manually?
Yes — the keyboard-triggered new record form goes through identical validation rules, required fields, and any configured record-type selection logic as manually clicking New, since the shortcut simply triggers the same underlying creation flow rather than bypassing any of the org's configured business logic.
Do keyboard shortcuts behave differently in Salesforce's mobile app compared to the desktop browser experience?
Yes — the Salesforce mobile app is a touch-first interface without a persistent physical keyboard in most usage, so this entire shortcut layer is specific to the desktop browser experience inside a Console app; mobile users rely on tap-based navigation instead, and there's no meaningful keyboard-shortcut equivalent layer built into the mobile app itself.
Are Quick Actions the same across every object, or configured per object?
They're configured per object and per page layout by an admin, so the specific set of Quick Actions available on, say, a Case record can be completely different from what's configured on an Opportunity, meaning the Q shortcut's actual menu contents depend entirely on how your org's admin has set up that particular object's layout.