How to quickly switch between open documents (or files) on your Mac with a simple keyboard shortcut

Sometimes while handling document files on your Mac, you may end up opening more than one at the same time so you can copy and paste excerpts or make modifications to a document while reading another.

Making life easier for switching between those multiple open document files is a handy keyboard shortcut that works not only with Apple’s Pages app but also with Microsoft Word and a slew of other apps like Preview.

Quickly switch between open documents on Mac

While you have two or more documents open in your favorite word-processing software, simply press and hold the Command key and then strike the ~ (Tilde) key on your keyboard.

This keyboard shortcut will switch your word-processing app’s window to the next document you have open, as illustrated by the following animated GIF:

Switch between open documents Pages GIF

It’s worth noting that you can repeatedly strike the ~ (Tilde) key again and again until you get to the document you want, which comes in handy if you have more than two documents open at the same time. If you only have two open at once, this will move you back and forth between both documents.

This also works in the Preview app with other file types like images and even if you have opened files of different kinds, for example, images and PDFs.

Did you know about this keyboard shortcut?

Related tips: