In this guide, we will show you the steps to fix the issue of the Option + Left/Right Arrow shortcut not working on Mac. The Apple ecosystem beholds a slew of nifty shortcuts up its sleeves. In this regard, when it comes to working with documents, then the Option key in combination with the Left/Right Arrow keys is probably one of the most useful ones out there.
For the unaware, this combination allows you to move the cursor by words, Option & Left keys will move the cursor to the beginning of the previous word whereas the Option & Right keys will move the cursor to the end of the next word. However, many users have voiced their concern that both these shortcuts aren’t working on their Macbook or iMac.
Whether it’s Notes, TextEdit, Mail, or Safari, this shortcut isn’t working across any of these apps. If you are also in the same boat, then this guide will make you aware of a nifty workaround to rectify this issue. Follow along.
Fix Option + Left/Right Arrow shortcut not working on Mac
The culprit behind this issue is the Unicode Hex Input mode that you are using under the Keyboard Input sources. By default, most of the keyboard shortcuts are disabled in Unicode Hex Input and hence you will have to manually enable it before using these shortcuts.
However, some users have reported that even enabling the shortcut for Unicode didn’t do the job for them, they had to completely remove the Unicode Hex Input from the Keyboard Sources. Therefore, we will be listing the instructions for both these tweaks. Try them out and then check out the results.
- Launch System Settings and select Keyboard from the left-hand side.
- Then click on Edit next to Input Source and select Unicode Hex Input.
- Now turn on the toggle next to Enable Keyboard Shortcuts and check out the results.
If you are still unable to use the shortcut in a specific app, then you have no choice but to remove this input source. Here’s how it could be done:
- Launch System Settings and select Keyboard from the left-hand side.
- Then click on Edit next to Input Source and select Unicode Hex Input.
- Now click on the minus sign to remove this input source and check out the results.
That’s it. These were the steps to fix the issue of the Option + Left/Right Arrow shortcut not working on Mac. If you have any queries concerning the aforementioned steps, do let us know in the comments. We will get back to you with a solution at the earliest.
