Google Drive keyboard shortcuts on the web are changing

Abner Li | Apr 30 2024 - 8:04 am PT

The Google Drive web client is updating its existing keyboard shortcuts to make possible “first-letters navigation.”

First-letters navigation lets users “quickly and easily” navigate through a list via keypress: “Users can move focus within a file list in Drive by pressing the first letter(s) of the file’s name. Pressing the same letter again will navigate to the next item starting with that letter.”

Drive already has single-letter shortcuts for navigating the UI and those will become multi-key shortcuts that slightly differ by operating system. For example:

Navigation and views
Shortcut description	Old shortcut	New Windows/ ChromeOS shortcut	New MacOS shortcut
Go to navigation panel (folders list)	g then n g then f	alt + g then n alt + g then f	option + g then n option + g then f
Go to items view	g then l	alt + g then i	option + g then i
Switch between grid and list in items view	v	alt + v then l	option + v then l
Go to page content	g then c	alt + g then c	option + g then c
Go to details pane	g then d	alt + g then d	option + g then d
Go to top of application (Google bar)	g then t	alt + g then t	option + g then t
Go to download status	g then a	alt + g then a	option + g then a
Go to upload status	g then u	alt + g then u	option + g then u
Show or hide approvals pane	e	alt + v then e	option + v then e
Show or hide details pane	d	alt + v then d	option + v then d
Show or hide activity pane	i	alt + v then a	option + v then a

You can find the full updated list here.

Once live, you can go to Google Drive > Settings > Keyboard shortcuts > “Update now” to enable the new shortcuts. Google will make the switch for all Workspace and personal account users on August 1.