My guess is that you’re all familiar with the “Enable Timeline Shortcut Keys” setting in the timeline’s fly-out menu. But what are the actual shortcut keys we’re enabling when we check this option?
Opening Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts… reveals nothing about these mysterious shortcut keys. They can’t be customised, that much is clear but what shortcut keys are enabled and what do they do? I did some searching in the good old Adobe archives and here is a list of what I found (my personal favourites are in bold, be sure to give them a try).
| Action | Windows | Mac OS |
|---|---|---|
| Start timeline playback | Spacebar | Spacebar |
| Toggle between timecode and frame number notation | Alt + click the current-time display in the lower-left corner of the timeline. | Alt + click the current-time display in the lower-left corner of the timeline. |
| Expand / collapse layers | Alt + click on “drop-down triangles” | Alt + click on “drop-down triangles” |
| Snap an object (keyframe, the current time, layer in point, and so on) to the nearest object in timeline | Shift-drag | Shift-drag |
| Evenly distribute a selected group of multiple keyframes. | Alt-drag (first or last keyframe in the selection) | Alt-drag (first or last keyframe in the selection) |
All following shortcut keys are for positioning the playhead on the timeline.
As I am used to dragging the actual playhead around, I was happy to discover an alternative and faster way by “grabbing” and “dragging” the time indicator in the lower left corner of the timeline panel. This proves to be a more efficient way to access the non-visible parts of the timeline.
| Action | Windows | Mac OS |
|---|---|---|
| Increase playhead scrubbing speed | Shift-drag the current time. | Shift-drag the current time. |
| Decrease playhead scrubbing speed | Controll-drag the current time. | Command-drag the current time. |
| Move playhead back one frame | Left Arrow (or Page Up) |
Left Arrow (or Page Up) |
| Move playhead forward one frame | Right Arrow (or Page Down) |
Right Arrow (or Page Down) |
| Move playhead back ten frames | Shift + Left Arrow (or Shift + Page Up) |
Shift + Left Arrow (or Shift Page Up) |
| Move playhead forward ten frames | Shift + Right Arrow (or Shift + Page Down) |
Shift + Right Arrow (or Shift + Page Down) |
| Move playhead to In point of the current layer | Up Arrow | Up Arrow |
| Move playhead to the Out point of the current layer | Down Arrow | Down Arrow |
| Move playhead to the beginning of the timeline | Home | Home |
| Move playhead to the end of the timeline | End | End |
| Move playhead to the beginning of the work area | Shift + Home | Shift + Home |
| Move playhead to the end of the work area | Shift + End | Shift + End |
| Move playhead back one second | Shift + Up Arrow | Shift + Up Arrow |
| Move playhead forward one second | Shift + Down Arrow | Shift + Down Arrow |
| Move playhead to the next whole second in timeline | Shift + click the Next Frame button. | Shift + click the Next Frame button. |
| Move playhead to the previous whole second in timeline | Shift + click the Previous Frame button. | Shift + click the Previous Frame button. |
Did I miss something or do you have something to add?
Share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments below.