Chat keyboard shortcuts

To speed up your daily workflow and productivity, keyboard shortcuts can be very helpful.

By using them, you will save yourself some clicks and seconds while perfoming recurring tasks, such as opening a new chat, sending a media message, resolving a chat, and more.

In the following list of shortcuts, SHIFT refers to the "⬆" key in the bottom-left corner of your keyboard.

These shortcuts are available anywhere in Chat, and many of them apply to the conversation that is currently open. You will need to have the focus in the browser's window in order to properly use the shortcuts.

Search anything

Press keys `SHIFT + F`

Search anything across WhatsApp numbers, including messages, chats, contacts, files, notes, webhooks, users and help center articles.

Resolve / Unresolve Chat

Press keys `SHIFT + R`

Toggle active chat resolve/unresolve status.

Start new chat

Press keys `SHIFT + A`

Start a new chat with an existing contact or phone number.

Aliases: CTRL + ALT + N (Windows) CMD + CTRL + N (Mac)

Search chats, contacts and messages

Press keys `SHIFT + S`

Search chats or messages in the current WhatsApp active number: your must be in the chats screen to use this shortcut.

Press keys `SHIFT + Y`

Search messages within the current chat. Only applicable if you are in a chat.

Previous chat

Press keys `ALT + ARROW UP` (Windows) `OPTION + ARROW UP` (Mac)

Move to the previous chat in the list.

Aliases:

CTRL + ALT + ARROW UP (Windows) CTRL + OPTION + ARROW UP (Mac)
SHIFT + ARROW UP or CTRL + SHIFT + ARROW UP
CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + TAB (Windows) CMD + CTRL + SHIFT + TAB (Mac)

Next chat

Press keys `ALT + ARROW DOWN` (Windows) `OPTION + ARROW DOWN` (Mac)

Move to the next chat in the list.

Aliases:

CTRL + ALT + ARROW DOWN (Windows) CTRL + OPTION + ARROW DOWN (Mac)
SHIFT + ARROW DOWN or CTRL + SHIFT + ARROW DOWN
CTRL + ALT + TAB (Windows) CMD + CTRL + TAB (Mac)

The chat list cycles: moving to the next chat from the last one takes you back to the first, and moving to the previous chat from the first one takes you to the last. Cycling stays within the view you are currently in, so a label, folder or custom filter only ever cycles through its own chats.

These shortcuts keep working while you are typing a reply, so you can answer a chat and jump straight to the next one without reaching for the mouse. Opening a chat puts the cursor in the reply box automatically, so this is the normal case rather than the exception.

On Mac, OPTION + ARROW UP and OPTION + ARROW DOWN take over the system's move-the-cursor-by-paragraph behaviour inside the reply box. Use CMD + ARROW UP / CMD + ARROW DOWN to jump to the start or end of your message instead.

CTRL + TAB and CTRL + PAGE UP / CTRL + PAGE DOWN are also accepted, but Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari reserve them to switch browser tabs and a web page cannot override them — so in a normal browser tab they will switch browser tabs, not chats. CMD + [ and CMD + ] are deliberately not used: the browser owns those for back/forward navigation and would navigate away from Chat.