How to Use Excel Shortcuts on a Mac

If you first learned Excel on Windows and became a power user in banking, consulting, or FP&A and then moved companies where you were forced to switch to a Mac, this article is for you. I spent many days trying to figure this out when I had to make a move and the below are my best tips.

Why Excel Shortcuts Are Broken on Mac

The reason Excel is such a versatile weapon is largely centered around its shortcuts and the ability to become a power user. Within the shortcut universe, some of the most used shortcuts are the Alt-key / Hot Key shortcuts where you type letter sequences to do pretty much anything in Excel. Alt+H,H for fill color. Alt+H,B,A for all borders. Alt+W,F,F to freeze panes.

On Mac, none of that exists. The Alt key (Option on Mac) doesn’t activate the ribbon. Microsoft replaced the entire shortcut layer with a smaller set of Ctrl+ and Cmd+ combos that don’t match what you already know. Without knowing anything about why they did this, in my frustrated moments, I like to think it’s because it helps Windows maintain its slight but depleting edge on Apple computers.

Here are some examples of shortcuts that just don’t work the same way on Mac:

• Alt+H,H (fill color) — no Mac equivalent.
• Alt+H,B,A (all borders) — no Mac equivalent.
• Alt+H,O,I (autofit column width) — no Mac equivalent.
• Alt+W,F,F (freeze panes) — no Mac equivalent.
• Alt+E,S,V (paste values) — replaced with Cmd+Ctrl+V, which opens a dialog instead of just pasting.
• Alt+H,6 (indent) — doesn’t work on Mac.

The list goes on. Basically, if you relied on Alt-key sequences in Windows Excel, you lost the majority of your workflow moving to Mac.

My Actual Recommendation: Switch to Google Sheets

If you’re like me, this sounds crazy at first. You’ve probably tried Google Sheets and found it unusable. Trust me — it is the way to go.

• Google Sheets works the same on every OS. No Mac vs. Windows differences.
• Collaboration is built in — no more emailing files or dealing with “read-only” locks.
• Version history is automatic and extremely good — I’ve never had a non-recoverable crashed spreadsheet.
• And with the right Chrome extension, you can get all your Excel shortcuts back even on a Mac.

The only real downside of Sheets is that it’s slower on huge datasets and doesn’t have some of Excel’s advanced features like Power Query or complex solver. But even that can be replaced with the right add-ons.

Get Your Shortcuts Back with XLKeys

This is the part that makes the switch actually work. I built XLKeys, a Chrome extension that brings all the Excel-style shortcuts into Google Sheets. I built this after searching for weeks for an extension that 1) duplicated all of my Excel shortcuts and 2) worked flawlessly fast — I could not find a suitable product. On Mac, you use Option instead of Alt and everything just works:

• Option+H,H for fill color.
• Option+H,B,A for all borders.
• Option+H,O,I for autofit column width.
• Option+W,F,F for freeze panes.
• Option+E,S,V for paste values.
• Option+H,6 for indent cycle.
• Ctrl+Shift+ for [trace precedents.
• Ctrl+Shift+S for auto-color (blue for inputs, black for formulas).
• Plus Goal Seek, Sensitivity Tables, and a lot more.

Every Alt-key sequence you used to rely on in Windows Excel now works on your Mac inside Google Sheets. It’s a life-changing switch — try it out and let me know what you think.