Chrome Keyboard Shortcuts — FULL Navigation Layer (2026)

You open a new tab, reach for the mouse, click the tab strip, miss, click again. Twenty seconds gone. Multiply that across a workday and the friction adds up before you notice the wrist strain.

SuperchargeNavigation maps every tab management action to a keyboard shortcut. Side panel, command palette, tab grouping, link preview, cycling through tabs, even clicking links without touching the mouse. The shortcuts are individually toggleable and rebindable through Chrome’s native shortcut manager.

The Four Core Shortcuts

Chrome extensions can register up to four system-level commands. These run from the service worker — they work from any page, even chrome:// URLs and the CWS:

All four default keys can be changed in Chrome’s shortcut manager — one button in Navigation settings takes you directly there. Chrome handles OS-level conflict detection so you won’t accidentally shadow a system shortcut.

The command palette (Alt+K) is its own feature with dedicated documentation at Tab Search. It fuzzy-searches your open tabs, falls through to a web search if nothing matches, and surfaces extra commands when SuperchargePerformance is installed.

Content-Script Shortcuts

These run in pages via injected content scripts. They cover the interactions that Chrome’s command API can’t reach:

Arrow tab navigation and arrow scroll are both off by default to avoid conflicts with existing keyboard habits. Turn them on in settings if you want fully mouse-free tab switching.

Hint Mode — Click Anything Without the Mouse

Hold Shift and letter badges appear over every clickable element on the current page. Type the badge to click it. This is the same model as Vimium’s f key, with three modifier variants:

The trigger key is configurable to Hold Alt, Hold Ctrl, or Press / (vimium-style modal that stays active until Escape). Chord modifiers auto-swap when the trigger collides — if you pick Hold Alt as trigger, the peek modifier shifts to Shift automatically.

Hints stay off in text inputs, when you have text selected, and on chrome:// pages. Configurable per-hostname via Alt+Shift+P.

Type-to-Select

Without entering hint mode, bare letter typing highlights every visible text match on the page. Works like browser Find but keyboard-action focused:

Fast text selection extends this: Shift+←/→ selects by word, Shift+↑/↓ by line, Shift+A expands to the surrounding block (paragraph, list item, article element).

Both type-to-select and fast text selection are off by default. Type-to-select requires a page without a focused input. Nav detects this automatically and skips activation when focus is in a form field.

Conflict Resolution and Per-Site Pausing

Every Chrome-registered command has an individual toggle in Navigation settings. If Alt+G clashes with a shortcut you use elsewhere, turn it off without touching the other three.

For sites with their own keyboard layers (Figma, Notion, Linear, Photopea), press Alt+Shift+P on the page. All Navigation content-script shortcuts — hints, type-to-select, Alt+wheel, peek, rocker gestures, super drag — pause for that hostname. The list is editable in settings and persists across sessions.

The side panel and command palette are registered at the Chrome system level, so they continue working even on paused sites.

Privacy

All shortcut state and per-site pause lists are stored in chrome.storage.local. No keystrokes are logged, no settings are sent to any server. The extension runs 100% locally with no account required.