Close Tab Quickly with a Shortcut Key in Firefox
Firefox has a ton of shortcut keys, but this is one of the most useful. I had written before about how to select a specific tab with a keyboard hotkey, which I use to easily switch back to my RSS reader of choice (Google Reader).
Today I was wondering how I could quickly close a tab that I had opened. When using Google Reader, using the "v" hotkey will open up the currently selected item in a new tab. I wanted a simpler way to close the tab than having to hit Ctrl+F4, which is a little more difficult to use.
Here's the shortcut key to quickly close a tab in Firefox:
Ctrl + W
This key combination is much easier to use.
The Geek is the founder of How-To Geek and a geek enthusiast. When he's not coming up with great how-to articles, he's probably writing at his personal blog. This article was written on 12/5/06 and tagged with: Firefox
This one also works in IE7.
Then there is also Ctrl+T, that one creates a new tab. And Ctrl+R (this one reloads current tab).
Thank you for pointing these out, HTG and Mathias.
In the days before pointing devices, I learned a lot of these shortcuts, and still use them. Interestingly, Microsoft and IBM collaborated early in creating a whole set of user interface "standards." Sadly, Microsoft themselves then abandoned many of them.
These shortcuts do work in (some) other browsers and applications, not just FF.
THANKS
how can I get rid of the "Welcome to Firefox" tab at every boot into Firefox?
Is there a keyboard shortcut, or way to create one for use in Firefox, that will "Close Other tabs"? More often than not, that is the keyboard shortcut I need for closing tabbed windows in Firefox.
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Shortcuts
- a pretty complete list of keybord shortcuts for firefox