How to Move the Cursor by Word, Line, and Paragraph on Mac

Move the cursor by word, line, paragraph, or document on Mac using Option, Command, and Control arrow keys, and add Shift to any of them to select instead.

1. Move one word at a time. Hold Option and press the Left or Right Arrow key. The cursor jumps to the boundary of the previous or next word instead of moving one character. Hold Option down and keep tapping the arrow to cross a full line in a few presses.
2. Jump to the line start or end. Hold Command and press the Left or Right Arrow key. The cursor moves to the beginning or the end of the current line. In a wrapped paragraph this means the line you can see on screen, not the whole paragraph.
3. Jump to the top or bottom. Hold Command and press the Up or Down Arrow key. The cursor moves to the very beginning or the very end of the document. In a single-line field such as a search box there is nowhere to go, so nothing happens.
4. Move one paragraph at a time. Hold Option and press the Up or Down Arrow key. The cursor moves to the start of the previous paragraph or the start of the next one. This is the useful middle gear between a single line and the whole document.
5. Add Shift to select instead of move. Hold Shift along with any combination above and the cursor drags a selection behind it instead of travelling alone. Shift with Option selects by word. Shift with Command selects to the end of the line or the document. The rules do not otherwise change.
6. Use the Control key text bindings. Press Control + A to move to the start of the current paragraph and Control + E to move to its end. In a single-line field such as a search box that is the whole field. In a soft-wrapped paragraph it is the paragraph, not the line you see on screen.