166

I know that there has been a similar question asked here very recently, but I was wondering if it was possible to tab between buttons on default Mac OS X dialog boxes?

I already have the All controls option enabled in System Preferences → Keyboard & Mouse → Keyboard Shortcuts, but no joy.

H. Pauwelyn
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ZombieSheep
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11 Answers11

207

If you enable Full Keyboard Access by setting it to all controls, you should be able to tab between options and select by hitting spacebar, at least for OS X 10.5:

Full Keyboard Access: All Controls (Control+F7)

Marius Butuc
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ruddzw
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93

While @ruddzw's (chosen) answer works, it can slow you down in other areas simply from the sheer number of controls there are to tab through.

@NReilingh presents a different approach, and the semantics behind it:

The right way to go about keyboard shortcuts for alternate dialog buttons is not tab, but command key combos. For example, Command-period is almost universally "cancel." [...]
It's often not documented, but the command shortcut for different buttons that aren't the default button or cancel is usually the first letter of that button.

So in the example:

Save prompt

  • enter/return will Save,
  • ⌘+. or esc will Cancel, and
  • ⌘+D will map to Don't Save.
    As @Kevin Reid points out, ⌘+delete works here as well.
Community
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Marius Butuc
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17

In Keyboard preferences under Keyboard Shortcuts

Full Keyboard Access: Switch to All Controls instead of Text Boxes and Lists Only

clhy
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13

In Ventura (MacOS 13) this has moved again, to a Keyboard navigation toggle in System Settings > Keyboard.

mmldrm
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11
  1. Visit System Settings
  2. Find or search for Keyboard
  3. Under Keyboard Navigation ensure the switch is on

enter image description here

ksav
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7

To enable navigation using Tabs from the command line type:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain AppleKeyboardUIMode -int 3
Amit Kotlovski
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6

In macOS Monterey (12.4) this option changed a little bit and looks like this: macOS Monterey Keyboard Shortcuts

I had the option "Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls" enabled but I wasn't able to tab between OK and Cancel in the Finder's delete dialog. I had to disable and reenable that option, so it was working again as expected.

Markus Rudel
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3

Is there a specific dialog you're having trouble with? With "All controls" enabled I can tab around every control of every Mac OS X dialog I've tested just now.

Rufo Sanchez
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2

In macOS Catalina, do the following.

In Settings Preferences, navigate to System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts. Select Keyboard in the left pane. Tick the Use Keyboard navigation and untick Change the way Tab moves focus options.

Here's the image for reference:
Keyboard Shortcuts preferences window

Chintan
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2

NEW SOLUTION:

System Settings --> Keyboard --> Keyboard Navigation

enter image description here

PREVIOUS SOLUTION:

The only way that I was able to make it work on macOS Sonoma 14.4 was like this:

  1. Create a Untitled.txt file.
  2. Rename that file to Untitled.md in Finder.
  3. A dialog will pop-up asking you to confirm that you want to change the file extension (look at the provided screenshot).
  4. When you have the dialog open click: control+f7 (or control+fn+f7)
  5. Now you can more to the next button with the tab key on your keyboard and click space to confirm/click on the button.

enter image description here

ttt
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0

When browsing with Safari, you can also tab between all HTML elements on the page using Option+Tab (otherwise Tab would only stop on the browser toolbar controls and quick bookmarks)

Sergio Acosta
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