Use VoiceOver Quick Nav in apps and web pages on Mac
With VoiceOver on your Mac, you can use Quick Nav to navigate using only the arrow keys and the Quick Nav rotor, or using single keys (instead of key combinations).
Note: VO represents the VoiceOver modifier that you press with additional keys to enter VoiceOver commands. By default, you can press Control and Option together or just press Caps Lock.
Turn Quick Nav on or off
Turn arrow-key Quick Nav on or off: Press VO-Shift-Q.
Turn single-key Quick Nav on or off: Press VO-Q.
You can also set an option to turn arrow-key Quick Nav, single-key Quick Nav or both on or off when you press the Left Arrow and Right Arrow keys at the same time. Press VO-Fn-F8 to open VoiceOver Utility, click the Commands category, then click the “Left and right arrow keys” pop-up menu and choose an option.
Navigate using arrow keys
With arrow-key Quick Nav on, you can navigate using only the arrow keys (without the VO modifier). To navigate some items, such as a table of contents with different levels, you must first interact with them.
Move around the screen: Press the Left Arrow or Right Arrow key.
Perform the default action on the item in the VoiceOver cursor: Press the Down Arrow and Up Arrow keys at the same time.
Start interacting with an item: Press the Right Arrow and Down Arrow keys at the same time.
Stop interacting with an item: Press the Left Arrow and Down Arrow keys at the same time.
Navigate using single keys
With single-key Quick Nav on, you can press single keys to navigate. For example, press b or B to navigate to the next or previous button, or press 1 or ! to navigate to the next or previous Heading 1.
You can view and change the default single-key assignments, and add your own assignments. See Customise key commands and trackpad gestures for VoiceOver.
Navigate apps and web pages using the Quick Nav rotor
With arrow-key Quick Nav on, you can use the Quick Nav rotor to navigate items using categories that are based on the current context. For example, in a Mail message, you can use the Quick Nav rotor to navigate a message by sentence, to move between the message headers and body, or to move between messages.
Open the Quick Nav rotor: Press Left Arrow-Up Arrow or Right Arrow-Up Arrow.
Go to the next category (such as Characters): Press Right Arrow-Up Arrow.
Go to the previous category (such as Content Chooser): Press Left Arrow-Up Arrow.
Navigate items in the current category: Press the Up Arrow or Down Arrow key. The VoiceOver cursor moves as you navigate items.
The Content Chooser category is especially useful for previewing messages in Mail. When the VoiceOver cursor is in a message preview, press the Quick Nav keys to go to the Content Chooser category, then press the Up Arrow or Down Arrow key. The VoiceOver cursor remains in the message preview as you move up and down in the messages list, making it possible to hear the email messages without having to first navigate to them.
When Quick Nav is on, the Quick Nav arrow-key and single-key commands are included in the Commands menu. See Search for VoiceOver commands.
Download this guide in Braille Ready Format: BRF (English)