X keyboard shortcuts: the full list that still works

#Quick answer

Press ? on x.com (Shift + /) while logged in and not typing, and X shows you its own shortcut overlay. The keys that matter day to day: j and k to move between posts, l to like, r to reply, t to repost, n for a new post, cmd/ctrl + Enter to send, / for search, and g plus a letter to jump timelines. None of this works in the mobile apps.

Last updated: September 2026

#TL;DR

X keyboard shortcuts are the cheapest speed upgrade on the platform, and the lists you find for them are mostly wrong. Almost every ranking page is a reprint of the 2018 Twitter shortcut table: it still lists a key for Moments, a feature X killed in 2022, and it leaves out the media controls and the share key that sit on X's own current page. Below is the set verified against X's published list, plus the one mechanic nobody explains that makes half the keys look broken.

#How to open X's own shortcut list

Skip the third-party tables and ask the app:

1. Open x.com in a browser and log in.
2. Click a blank area of the page so your cursor is not inside the composer or search box.
3. Press ? (that is Shift + / on a US layout).

An overlay appears with the shortcuts active on your build, grouped into Navigation, Actions, and Media. X ships builds in stages, so this overlay is the only list that is definitely true for you. Press Escape to close it.

One quirk worth knowing: x.com/i/keyboard_shortcuts is a real public page, but it serves a trimmed list to logged-out visitors. If you land there and the list looks short, that is why.

#Navigation: moving without touching the mouse

The pair to internalise is j and k. They do not just scroll, they move a selection ring from post to post, and that selection is what every single-letter action key below operates on. Vim users will recognise the handedness immediately.

Once search has focus via /, the operators are where the real power is. Our guide to X advanced search covers which ones still return results in 2026.

#Timeline jumps: g plus a letter

Press g, release, then press the second key.

g e and g s and g u are the three confirmed on X's own public page. The rest are the long-standing set, consistent across independent shortcut references, and they hold up in practice. The one you will use most is g u: it turns "find this person's profile" into four keystrokes with no mouse trip through search.

If g h drops you into an algorithmic feed you did not want, that is a separate setting rather than a shortcut problem. See the X Following tab for pinning yourself to chronological.

#Actions: what happens to the selected post

Here is the mechanic that makes this section click. These act on the selected post, not the post under your mouse pointer. Load your timeline, press l immediately, and nothing happens, because nothing is selected yet. Press j once to grab the first post, then l likes it and j moves on. That loop is the whole reason people describe keyboard browsing on X as faster: select, act, advance, without a single click.

Note s for share. It is on X's own current list and missing from most copies, which tells you how old those copies are. Note also that t gives you the repost menu rather than firing a blind repost, so you can still pick quote instead. The difference between the two is covered in how to repost on X.

For m, X opens a new message compose rather than a conversation with the selected account, so you still pick the recipient. The rest of the DM limits are in how to send a DM on X.

#Media keys almost nobody lists

X's published list includes a Media group that essentially never appears in copied tables:

Read that carefully, because two keys change meaning depending on context. When a video is selected, k stops being "previous post" and becomes pause, and Space stops paging down. m mutes the video instead of opening a DM. This context switch is a genuine gotcha: people hit k expecting to scroll back, pause a video instead, and conclude the shortcuts are broken.

#Four rows to delete from every other list

This is where most guides fail, and it is easy to verify yourself in the overlay.

• g o for Moments. Dead. X removed the ability to create Moments in December 2022 (Engadget), and there is no Moments tab to jump to. Any list still carrying this row was copied, not tested.
• c for compose. Turns up on some lists as a second new-post key. It is not on X's published list, and n is the one that reliably opens the composer. Treat c as legacy.
• g n labelled "home". At least one widely-copied reference lists g n for both the home timeline and notifications. Home is g h. That is a transcription error propagating.
• "Retweet" and "Tweet" labels. Cosmetic, but a tell: X's own overlay says post and repost. A list still using the old nouns has not been checked against the product in years.

#The limits: mobile, X Pro, and text fields

Three boundaries explain most "shortcuts not working" complaints.

No mobile support. The iOS and Android apps do not implement keyboard shortcuts, including on an iPad with a hardware keyboard. If you want them on a tablet, use the browser. Everything about the browser experience, including why some people prefer it outright, is in how to use X in a web browser.

X Pro is a different product. X Pro, previously TweetDeck, is column-based and carries its own shortcut set, so timeline jumps do not translate. It also requires a paid subscription now, which changes the calculation for anyone who used it as a free power-user surface. The current state is in is TweetDeck still free.

Focus beats everything. If your cursor is inside any text input, X correctly treats keys as typing. Pressing ? in the search box searches for a question mark. Click empty background first, every time.

#Where shortcuts stop helping

Shortcuts compress the mechanical part of using X: navigating, opening, acting. They do nothing about the part that actually takes the time, which is deciding what to say and writing it in your own voice. Getting from 40 seconds per reply to 15 is real, but only if there is a reply in your head to type.

That gap is what X-Autopilot is built for. It drafts posts and replies from a real Chrome browser on your own Mac, so your session cookie never leaves your machine and there is no delegate account or shared cloud IP in the path - a lower detection surface than cloud schedulers, though browser-route automation on X is a gray area rather than an approved one, not a risk-free path. Pair the two and the keyboard handles movement while the drafting problem stops being a blank box.

Learn j, k, l, r, n and g u first. Those six cover most of a session. Then press ? once a month, because the list on your build is the only one that is current.