Use VoiceOver to navigate by letters, text or attributes on Mac
Navigate by searching for a letter, text or text attribute.
Note: VO represents the VoiceOver modifier that you press with additional keys to enter VoiceOver commands. By default, you can press Control and Option together or just press Caps Lock.
By letter
You can use fast searching to quickly move to the next occurrence of a letter in an element on the screen. To set up fast searching, open VoiceOver Utility (press VO-Fn-F8 when VoiceOver is on), click the Navigation category, select the Enable fast searching tickbox, then choose a Command key to use.
Search for the next element that begins with a specific letter: Press the specified Command key and the letter. For example, press Left Command-S.
Search for the previous element that begins with a specific letter: Press the specified Command key, the Shift key and the letter. For example, press Left Command-Shift-S.
By text
Type a phrase in the VoiceOver search panel to navigate to the next occurrence of that phrase.
Press VO-F to display the search panel.
In the search panel, type or paste the text you’re looking for, then press Return.
VoiceOver searches from the VoiceOver cursor to the end of the text area.
Find the next occurrence of the text in the window: Press VO-G.
Find the previous occurrence of the text in the window: Press VO-Shift-G.
To review past searches, press VO-F to display the search panel, then press the Up Arrow or Down Arrow key.
Repeat a previous search: Press Return.
Delete a search: Press Command-Delete.
By text attribute
To find the next or previous instance of an attribute, use the following commands:
Attribute | Find the next instance | Find the previous instance |
|---|---|---|
Bold text | VO-Command-B | VO-Command-Shift-B |
Font change | VO-Command-O | VO-Command-Shift-O |
Text that has the same style as the current text | VO-Command-S (if you are not in a text area, VO-Command-S finds the next item that is the same as the current item) | VO-Command-Shift-S (if you are not in a text area, VO-Command-Shift-S finds the previous item that is the same as the current item) |
Style change | VO-Command-C | VO-Command-Shift-C |
Italic text | VO-Command-I | VO-Command-Shift-I |
Colour change | VO-Command-K | VO-Command-Shift-K |
Underlined text | VO-Command-U | VO-Command-Shift-U |
Plain text | VO-Command-P | VO-Command-Shift-P |
Graphic | VO-Command-G | VO-Command-Shift-G |
Link | VO-Command-L | VO-Command-Shift-L |
You can interact with any element that has a title or embedded text, such as a button or a Smart Address in Mail, to read the element by word or by character.
Download this guide in Braille Ready Format: BRF (English)