Outlook’s Ribbon interface is great for finding everything you might ever want to do in the email, contacts, and calendaring program — particularly things you don’t do frequently, like using the mail merge feature.

But if you’re looking to do common tasks fast, you’ll find keyboard shortcuts far more useful. Why bother to lift your hands from the keyboard if you want to create an email message or a meeting, or switch to the calendar?

There are keyboard shortcuts to accomplish a vast array of tasks in the Outlook desktop client, in both the Windows and Mac versions. (Fewer shortcuts are available for the Mac, but you can create your own custom keyboard shortcuts if you like.)

We've listed the shortcuts we’ve found the most useful below. Most work whether you’re using a subscription (Microsoft 365/Office 365) or non-subscription version of Outlook. For even more shortcuts, see Microsoft’s Office site.

Note: On Macs, the ⌘ key is the same as the Command or Cmd key.

Looking for more help with Outlook for Windows? If you have Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscription, see "Outlook for Microsoft 365 cheat sheet." If you have a non-subscription version of Office, see "Outlook 2016 and 2019 cheat sheet." We've also got tips and cheat sheets for an array of Microsoft products, including older versions of Office.