Control your Mac using keyboard commands with VoiceOver
With VoiceOver, the screen reader built into macOS, you can use keyboard commands to move a cursor around the screen and get a description of the item where the cursor is located. Learn essential VoiceOver commands for navigating your Mac and interacting with user interface controls, such as clicking a button or selecting multiple items.
Enter VoiceOver commands
A VoiceOver command is a combination of keys that you press to perform an action on your Mac with VoiceOver.
To enter a command, press the VoiceOver modifier and another key. You’ll hear commands represented as VO-key, where VO represents the VoiceOver modifier. By default, you can use either Caps Lock or Control-Option as the VoiceOver modifier.
You can make it easier to enter VoiceOver commands by locking the VoiceOver modifier. For example, when the VoiceOver modifier is locked, you enter VO-Shift-M by pressing just the Shift and M keys at the same time.
Lock or unlock the modifier: Press VO-Semicolon.
Navigate the screen
You use the VoiceOver cursor to move around the screen, hear a description of the item where the cursor is located and interact with the item. The VoiceOver cursor appears onscreen as a rectangular outline around an item.
To move the VoiceOver cursor, press VO and the Left Arrow or Right Arrow key.
As you navigate, you hear a hollow sound effect to indicate that there are no more items in a particular direction.
Click an item
Click an item: Press VO-Space bar. VO-Space bar performs the default action for the item in the VoiceOver cursor, such as clicking a button or selecting a tickbox.
Double-click an item: Press VO-Space bar-Space bar.
Control-click an item: Press VO-Shift-M. Control-click is also called secondary click on Mac or right-click on Windows.
Interact with areas and groups
Content in VoiceOver is organised hierarchically, which means some items may be grouped within others. An item that contains additional nested items is called an area (such as a list of files) or a group (such as a toolbar of buttons).
By default, you must interact with an area or group before you can navigate to its items. This gives you the choice to bypass it or stop to explore its contents.
When the VoiceOver cursor moves to an area or group, VoiceOver indicates that you’re on an item that can be interacted with. After you interact with it, you can navigate only within that area or group until you exit it.
To interact with an area or group, press VO-Shift-Down Arrow.
To exit an area or group, press VO-Shift-Up Arrow.
When you interact with areas or groups, you may press VO-Shift-Down Arrow multiple times in order to drill down into, for example, a group contained inside another group. When you’ve finished exploring nested items, you can press VO-Shift-Escape to jump to the top level of the app you’re in, instead of pressing VO-Shift-Up Arrow multiple times.
You can set an option so that VoiceOver navigates directly to the items in a group without having to interact with the group. Go to VoiceOver Utility (press VO-Fn-F8 when VoiceOver is on), click the Navigation category, click “Grouping behaviour”, then choose a setting other than Standard.
Note: Some areas or groups (such as tables) always require interaction, regardless of the setting you choose. This prevents you from having to navigate potentially large numbers of items, such as thousands of messages in the Mail app.
Select or deselect one or more items
Select or deselect an item: Press VO-Command-Return.
Select multiple items: Navigate to each item you want to select, then press VO-Command-Return. You may need to press VO-Shift-Down Arrow to interact with an area or group before you can start selecting items.
Deselect all but one item: Navigate to an item, then press VO-Command-Fn-F4. VoiceOver deselects all items except the one in the VoiceOver cursor.
Additional ways to control VoiceOver
In addition to using the VoiceOver modifier and one or more keys to control VoiceOver, you can use keys on the numeric keypad, Option keys, single keys (instead of multi-key combinations), trackpad gestures or keys on a refreshable braille display.
Press a modifier key and a key on a numeric keypad: Go to VoiceOver Utility (press VO-Fn-F8 when VoiceOver is on), click the Commands category, then select NumPad next to “Also control VoiceOver with”.
Note: When this option is on, you can’t move the pointer using the macOS Mouse Keys feature. See Use your keyboard like a mouse.
Press an Option key and one or more keys on the keyboard: Go to VoiceOver Utility (press VO-Fn-F8 when VoiceOver is on), click the Commands category, then select Option Key next to “Also control VoiceOver with”. By default, use the right Option key. To use the left Option key or either Option key, click the “Which option key” pop-up menu, then choose an option.
Press only a single key on the keyboard (instead of multi-key combinations): See Use VoiceOver Quick Nav in apps and web pages.
Use trackpad gestures: See Use trackpad gestures to control VoiceOver.
Press keys on a refreshable braille display: See Use braille displays with VoiceOver.
You can use the VoiceOver rotor to hear categories of items on the screen and navigate directly to a specific item.
Download this guide in Braille Ready Format: BRF (English)