Using Mastodon through a keyboard

If you’re using Mastodon through the website on a computer, you can control it through your keyboard with the hotkeys feature and the emoji typing feature.

Hotkeys on Mastodon

Hotkeys are always on, press shift + ? (or just ? on some keyboard layouts) to see a complete guide to which keys do what. Some of the keys are only useful in the advanced web interface (multicolumn) mode, but most of them can be used with the default single column mode.

For your convenience, here’s the complete list:

rReply to post
mMention author
pOpen author’s profile
fFavourite post
bBoost post
enter, oOpen post
eOpen media
xShow/hide text behind CW
hShow/hide media
up, kMove up in the list
down, jMove down in the list
1-9Focus column
nFocus compose textarea
alt+nStart a new post
alt+xShow/hide CW field
backspaceNavigate back
sFocus search bar
escUnfocus compose textarea/search
g+hOpen home timeline
g+nOpen notifications column
g+lOpen local timeline
g+tOpen federated timeline
g+dOpen direct messages column
g+sOpen get started column
g+fOpen favourites list
g+pOpen pinned posts list
g+uOpen your profile
g+bOpen blocked users list
g+mOpen muted users list
g+rOpen follow requests list
?Display hotkeys list

Typing emoji through a keyboard on Mastodon

If you’re using Mastodon on a computer, you can type emoji directly with your keyboard.

Just type : (colon) and a keyword without a space. A dropdown menu will appear with matching emoji, and you can pick one with the arrow keys. For example :sun will bring up emoji matching the keyword “sun”.

If there are a lot of matches for a keyword, they may not all appear on the dropdown. If so, you’ll need to search for them from the picker icon in the top right corner of the editing box.

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