MacOS – Mac keyboard shortcut to “Select Current Line”

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I am looking for a keyboard shortcut that selects the full line (i.e., the text of the line) of the blinking caret cursor in any editable, multi-line text field. Nothing more than just this one line should be selected.

I understand that one can use the following two keyboard shortcuts in succession to accomplish this:

shift + ⬆

shift + ➡

However, this does not work in all applications. That is, sometimes this combo highlights the current line plus the previous line, minus the first character of the previous line.

Best Answer

To select an entire line of editable text, assuming a left justified language...

If the insertion point cursor is at the beginning of the line, press:

  • Command–Shift–Right Arrow ⌘⇧➡

If the insertion point cursor is at the end of the line, press:

  • Command–Shift–Left Arrow ⌘⇧⬅

If the insertion point cursor is at any other part of the line, press:

  • Command–Left Arrow, Command–Shift–Right Arrow ⌘⬅ ⌘⇧➡

    Note that in this previous key sequence set, that you can keep the ⌘ key pressed while pressing/releasing ⬅ then press ⇧➡ so as to eliminate pressing/releasing the ⌘ key twice.

See the Document shortcuts section in Mac keyboard shortcuts.

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