How to Change Mission Control Keyboard Shortcuts on Mac

Mission Control ships with a fixed-feeling set of keys — Ctrl+Up, Ctrl+Down, F3 — but every one of them is reassignable, and some of the most useful shortcuts in the pane are switched off out of the box. Here's where they all live on macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, and 15 Sequoia.

Where the shortcuts live

1. Open System Settings → Keyboard.
2. Click Keyboard Shortcuts…
3. Select Mission Control in the sidebar.

The pane lists the whole family: Mission Control (Ctrl+Up, also the F3 key), Application windows (Ctrl+Down — App Exposé), Show Desktop (F11; on a laptop that's Fn+F11), plus Move left a space and Move right a space (Ctrl+Left/Ctrl+Right) inside the Mission Control group.

To change any of them: double-click the shortcut in the key column so it becomes an input field, then press the new combo. The change applies immediately. To disable one instead, untick its checkbox — handy if Ctrl+Left keeps fighting with a text editor's word-jump keys.

To undo: return to the pane and click Restore Defaults. Note it resets every shortcut in the selected pane, not just the one you changed.

The hidden ones: jump straight to a desktop

The best shortcuts in this pane are off by default. Expand the Mission Control group and you'll find Switch to Desktop 1, Switch to Desktop 2, and so on — one row for each Space you've actually created in Mission Control. Tick them and Ctrl+1 through Ctrl+9 jump directly to that desktop, no arrow-key scrolling through the Spaces in between.

If you keep, say, mail on Desktop 1, a browser on 2, and a project on 3, this is the single biggest Mission Control upgrade available: three keys replace all your swiping. Rows only appear for desktops that exist, so if you don't see Switch to Desktop 3, open Mission Control (Ctrl+Up) and add a Space with the + at the top-right first.

One conflict to watch: some apps use Ctrl+number for tab switching. If a combo stops working inside one app, that app is intercepting it — change either side.

Mouse buttons and modifier combos

There's a second, older shortcut panel with tricks the Keyboard pane doesn't offer:

1. Open System Settings → Desktop & Dock.
2. Scroll to the Mission Control section and click Shortcuts…

The sheet shows dropdowns for Mission Control, Application windows, and Show Desktop, each with a keyboard column and a mouse column. Two things make it special:

• Modifier combos: hold Shift, Ctrl, Option, or Cmd (or several) while a dropdown is open and every entry updates — so you can set Show Desktop to something like Cmd+F11 that nothing else uses.
• Mouse buttons: with a multi-button mouse connected, the right-hand dropdowns let you put Mission Control on a spare mouse button — genuinely fast if your hand lives on the mouse.

Set either column back to – to clear it.

Don't forget the gestures and corners

Keys aren't the only triggers. A three- or four-finger swipe up opens Mission Control and swipe down opens App Exposé (System Settings → Trackpad → More Gestures), and a hot corner can do the same with zero keys — assign one under Desktop & Dock → Hot Corners… Pick whichever your hands are already closest to; they all coexist happily.

Make the switch feel instant

Once Ctrl+1..9 are on, the remaining friction is the slide animation between Spaces — see keyboard shortcuts to switch desktops on Mac for the full desktop-hopping setup.