BlackBerry® Smartphones Keyboard Shortcuts

When you buy a Blackberry, you will not have everything written in the manual and if you’re new to the Blackberry world, you will be overwhelmed with the different buttons on the device. As a Blackberry user, you may or may not know that your device possesses many keyboard shortcuts. Using keyboard shortcuts will quicken your work and at the same time help you harness the full abilities of your device.

Today, I want to share some keyboard shortcuts that you can use on your device and as well help you speed through many things on your Blackberry device.

BlackBerry Typing Shortcuts

• To insert a period, press the Space key twice. The next letter is capitalized
• To capitalize a letter, hold the letter key until the capitalized letter appears
• Alt + Left Shift - NUM Lock
• Alt + Right Shift - CAPS Lock
• To turn off NUM lock or CAP lock, press the Shift key
• To insert an at sign (@) or a period (.) in an email address field, press the Space key
• To highlight a line of text, press the Shift key and roll the trackball
• To highlight text character by character, hold the Shift key and roll the trackball left or right
• To cancel a text selection, press the Escape key
• To cut highlighted text when typing, press the Shift + Backspace/Delete key
• To copy highlighted text when typing, press the Alt key and click the trackball
• To paste highlighted text when typing, press the Shift key and click the trackball

BlackBerry Message Shortcuts

In a message:
• R - Reply To Message
• L - Reply To All
• F - Forward Message
• I - File Highlighted Message
• To view the email address of a contact, in a message, highlight the contact. Press Q. To view the display name again, press Q.
In a message list:
• C - Compose Message
• ALT+U - Mark Message As Opened/Unopened
• ALT+I - View Inbox
• ALT+O - View Outbox
• ALT+V - View Voicemail
• ALT+S - View SMS
• ALT+P - View Call Log
• To view all your messages again, press the Escape key
• SHIFT+SPACE - Move to the top of a screen
• SPACE - Move to the bottom of a screen
• T - Go to top of a message
• B - Go to bottom of a message
• N - Move to the next date
• P - Move to the previous date
• U - Move to the next unopened item
• J - Move to the next related item
• K - Move to the previous related item
• F - Search for text in an attachment/web page
• G - Move to the last cursor position in a message after closing and reopening an attachment

BlackBerry Phone Shortcuts

The following shortcuts can be used in the Phone application or during a phone call:
• To answer a phone call, press the Send key
• To view the call log, press the Send key from any screen
• To insert a plus sign (+) when typing a phone number, hold the letter O
• To add an extension to a phone number, press the Alt key and the X key, then type the extension number
• To assign a speed dial number to a key, from the Home screen or in the Phone application, hold the key you want to assign. Type the phone number
• To type a letter in a phone number field, press the Alt key and the letter
• To move to the top of the Phone screen, press the Space key
• To change between headset, speakerphone and handset, press the menu key and choose an option, or better yet, Tap the $ (dollar sign) key on your keyboard to turn speakerphone on/off during a call
• To stay in a call and return to the home screen, press the Escape key and select Ok

BlackBerry Browser Shortcuts

• To insert a period in the Go To dialog box, press the Space key
• To insert a slash mark (/) in the Go To dialog box, press Shift+Space
• To open the browser options, in the browser, press O
• To stop loading a web page, press the Escape key
• To hide the browser, press D
• To close the browser, hold the Escape key
• To view the address for a link, highlight a link. Press L
• To move forward a screen, press the Shift key and the Space key
• To move to a previous screen, press the Space key
• G - Move to a specific page
• H - Return to the home page
• K - Open bookmarks
• A - Add a bookmark
• I - View recent web pages
• R - Refresh page
• P - View page address
• S - Save web page
• U - Hide browser banner
• X - Veiw thumbnail version of a page
• T - Move to the top of a page
• B - Move to the bottom of a page

Other helpful Shortcuts

• ALT+Shift+H - Access Help ME! screen (status info etc.)

• ALT+LGLG - Access Event Log
• ALT+Right Shift+DEL - Soft Reset

You can change the display of the 'signal strength' on your screen to read in real numbers. While at the home screen, hold down the ALT key while you type NMLL. The bars should change to numbers. For the 'signal strength', if you are in the 100 area (that means -100 dBm), you will be transmitting at maximum power. Anything at -90 to -50 is a very good signal.

On top of the AutoText there are also some short codes for common device information that you can type into SMS or email messages that will return a value:
• myver - Device Model/Version
• mypin - Device PIN
• LD - Local Date
• LT - Local Time

Keep it in mind that the BlackBerry shortcuts shared on this page are the default shortcuts and it should work for most BlackBerry devices.