Hidden Firefox Shortcuts and Power Features: %, Caret Browsing, Quick Find Links, Screenshot Tool

Firefox has over 200 keyboard shortcuts. Most developers know Ctrl+T for new tab and F12 for DevTools. But there's a deeper layer of shortcuts for power users — tab operations, address bar tricks, and DevTools features that rarely get documented. Here's the collection that most developers discover only after years of Firefox use.

Address Bar Power Tricks

% prefix — search only open tabs:
Type % gmail in the address bar — Firefox shows only open tabs matching "gmail". Press Enter to switch to that tab. No more Ctrl+Tab hunting through 30 tabs.

Keyword navigation — set keywords on bookmarks (right-click bookmark → Properties → Keyword):

Keyword: gh
URL: https://github.com/

Type gh + Enter → navigate to GitHub instantly. With %s substitution for search URLs:

Keyword: mdn
URL: https://developer.mozilla.org/search?q=%s

Type mdn css grid → MDN search results.

* prefix — search bookmarks only:
* react hooks — finds bookmarks containing "react hooks".

^ prefix — search history only:
^ that article about flexbox — finds previously visited pages.

Ctrl+Enter — add www. prefix and .com suffix, open current text:
Type github + Ctrl+Enter → opens www.github.com.

Alt+Enter — open address bar result in a new tab (instead of current tab).

Tab Operations Most People Don't Know

Ctrl+Shift+T — reopen last closed tab. Works for the last ~10 closed tabs (press repeatedly).

Ctrl+Shift+P — new private window.

Ctrl+M — mute/unmute the current tab. No need to right-click.

Ctrl+Shift+E — opens Tab Manager sidebar (no extension needed, but limited). Not the same as the Tab Manager & Session Saver extension.

Middle-click a tab — close it.

Ctrl+Click a link — opens in new background tab (standard, but many people don't use it).

Ctrl+Shift+Click a link — opens in new focused foreground tab.

Shift+Click a link — opens in new window.

Drag a tab out — creates a new window with that tab.

Drag a tab into another window — moves it.

Scrolling and Navigation

F7 — toggle Caret Browsing mode. A blinking cursor appears in the page — you can select text and navigate with keyboard arrow keys without touching the mouse. Shift+Arrow selects text. Press F7 to exit.

/ (forward slash) — opens Quick Find (inline find that doesn't steal focus). Works in the page (not in text inputs). Press Escape to close.

' (single quote) — opens Quick Find Links Only. Navigate with arrow keys to jump between links. Press Enter to follow the highlighted link.

Ctrl+[ and Ctrl+] — navigate between DevTools panels (in DevTools).

Alt+Left / Alt+Right — back/forward (standard, but many use the mouse instead).

Finding Anything Quickly

Ctrl+F → # in the find bar — Firefox's find bar supports some special modes. Typing #myid in the find bar finds elements with that CSS ID (not text matching "myid"). Useful for jumping to a specific element.

Page source search — Ctrl+U to view source, then Ctrl+F to search within it. Find comments, hidden attributes, tracking pixels.

Reader Mode

F9 — toggle Reader Mode (on compatible articles). Reader Mode strips everything except content text, removes ads, trackers, and navigation clutter.

Reader Mode settings:

• Font: change reading font (Serif, Sans-Serif, Monospace)
• Width: narrow or wide layout
• Colors: dark/sepia/light themes
• Size: adjustable text size

Keyboard shortcuts in Reader Mode:

• N — next paragraph
• P — previous paragraph

Screenshot Tool

Ctrl+Shift+S — opens Firefox's built-in screenshot tool. Options:

• Click and drag to select area
• Hover over element to capture just that element (full component)
• "Save visible page" — exactly what's visible in viewport
• "Save full page" — scrolls and captures the entire page

Screenshots are saved to Downloads. The screenshot captures the rendered page including CSS effects.

Firefox-Specific Developer Shortcuts

Shift+F2 — opens the Browser Toolbox. This is DevTools for Firefox itself (chrome-level JavaScript, extensions). Requires enabling remote debugging in about:config first.

about:profiler — opens the Firefox Profiler without opening DevTools. Direct access to the performance profiler.

about:memory → "Minimize memory usage" — forces garbage collection and memory compaction. The button is the fastest way to see how much memory Firefox actually needs (vs. currently has).

about:networking — shows active HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 connections, DNS cache, and connection stats. Useful for debugging connection issues.

about:cache — shows disk and memory cache entries. Search by URL fragment.

Extension-Like Behavior Without Extensions

Firefox has some built-in features that people install extensions for:

Multi-line URL editing: click the address bar, press Shift+Delete, type multi-line expression — not useful but surprising.

Custom search engines without a plugin: right-click any search input field → "Add Search Engine" — adds that field as a Firefox search engine, accessible by keyword.

Pinned tabs: right-click a tab → Pin Tab. The tab becomes a small icon-only tab at the left of the tab bar that persists across sessions.

Tab Groups (Firefox 131+): right-click a tab → Add to Tab Group. Groups tabs with a color and label. A long-requested feature now built in.

Miscellaneous Shortcuts That Save Time

Configuring Your Own Shortcuts

Firefox doesn't have a built-in shortcut editor, but extensions like Saka Key or Tridactyl allow full remapping. Tridactyl lets you set up Vim-style bindings with its configuration file (.tridactylrc), including custom ex commands that execute JavaScript.