A quick reference for people learning VoiceOver, the screen reader built into the Mac. It covers the everyday commands for macOS 14 Sonoma and macOS 15 Sequoia.
In this guide, VO means the VoiceOver keys: Control and Option held together. You can also set Caps Lock to act as the VO keys in VoiceOver Utility. On most Mac keyboards, commands that use F1 to F12 also need the Fn key, so we have included Fn where Apple does.
Getting started
| To do this | Press |
|---|
| Turn VoiceOver on or off | Command + F5 |
| Turn VoiceOver on or off on a Mac with Touch ID | Hold Command and press Touch ID three times quickly |
| Stop VoiceOver talking | Control |
| Start keyboard help (press Escape to stop) | VO + K |
| Open the VoiceOver Help menu | VO + H |
| Open VoiceOver Utility to change settings | VO + Fn + F8 |
| Lock or unlock the VO keys so you don't have to hold them | VO + Semicolon |
| Repeat the last thing VoiceOver said | VO + Z |
| Copy the last thing VoiceOver said to the clipboard | VO + Shift + C |
Moving around
| To do this | Press |
|---|
| Move to the next item | VO + Right Arrow |
| Move to the previous item | VO + Left Arrow |
| Move up or down | VO + Up Arrow or VO + Down Arrow |
| Start interacting with a group, such as a list, table or text area | VO + Shift + Down Arrow |
| Stop interacting with a group | VO + Shift + Up Arrow |
| Activate the current item, like clicking a button | VO + Space |
| Move to the top of the window | VO + Command + Home (VO + Command + Fn + Left Arrow on keyboards without a Home key) |
| Move to the bottom of the window | VO + Command + End (VO + Command + Fn + Right Arrow on keyboards without an End key) |
| Move keyboard focus to the next control | Tab |
| Move keyboard focus to the previous control | Shift + Tab |
Reading text
For most of these, first interact with the text area using VO + Shift + Down Arrow.
| To do this | Press |
|---|
| Read everything from the VoiceOver cursor onwards | VO + A |
| Read the current line | VO + L |
| Read the current sentence | VO + S |
| Read the current paragraph | VO + P |
| Read the current word | VO + W |
| Read the current character | VO + C |
| Read the current character phonetically, like "a, alpha" | VO + C, then C again quickly |
| Read the next or previous line | VO + Down Arrow or VO + Up Arrow |
| Read everything visible in the window | VO + Shift + W |
Finding your way around the Mac
| To do this | Press |
|---|
| Move to the menu bar | VO + M |
| Move to the status menus on the right of the menu bar | VO + M, then M again quickly |
| Move to the Dock | VO + D |
| Hear a summary of open apps | VO + Fn + F1 |
| Open the Application Chooser to switch apps | VO + Fn + F1, then F1 again quickly |
| Hear a summary of the current window | VO + Fn + F2 |
| Open the Window Chooser | VO + Fn + F2, then F2 again quickly |
| Describe the item in the VoiceOver cursor | VO + Fn + F3 |
| Describe the item with keyboard focus | VO + Fn + F4 |
| Open the shortcut menu, like a right-click | VO + Shift + M |
Web pages
| To do this | Press |
|---|
| Open the rotor to browse headings, links and more | VO + U |
| Move to the next heading | VO + Command + H |
| Move to the previous heading | VO + Command + Shift + H |
| Move to the next link | VO + Command + L |
| Move to the next form control, such as a text field or button | VO + Command + J |
| Move to the next table | VO + Command + T |
| Move to the next list | VO + Command + X |
| Move to the next image | VO + Command + G |
| Read from the top of the page to where you are | VO + B |
| Hear the address of a link | VO + Shift + U |
Searching and Quick Nav
| To do this | Press |
|---|
| Find text on the screen | VO + F |
| Find the next match | VO + G |
| Find the previous match | VO + Shift + G |
| Open the Item Chooser to pick from a list of everything in the window | VO + I |
| Turn single-key Quick Nav on or off | VO + Q |
| With single-key Quick Nav on, move to the next heading | H |
| With single-key Quick Nav on, move to the previous heading | Shift + H |
Tables
Move into the table with VO + Shift + Down Arrow first, then use VO with the arrow keys to move between cells.
| To do this | Press |
|---|
| Read the row header | VO + R |
| Read the whole row | VO + R, then R again quickly |
| Read the column header | VO + C |
| Read the whole column | VO + C, then C again quickly |
| Hear which row and column you are in | VO + Shift + T |
| Hear the size of the table | VO + Shift + T, then T again quickly |
Handy extras
| To do this | Press |
|---|
| Turn the screen curtain on or off, to make the screen black for privacy | VO + Shift + Fn + F11 |
| Describe an image or photo | VO + Shift + L |
| Open the verbosity rotor, to choose how much VoiceOver says | VO + V |
| Hear the date and time | VO + Fn + F7 |
| Pass the next key straight to the app, ignoring VoiceOver | VO + Tab |
Tip: press VO + K to turn on keyboard help. Then press any key or combination to hear what it does, without it doing anything. Press Escape when you're done. If you get lost, VO + H opens a Help menu where you can search for commands by name.
