15 Useful Keyboard Shortcuts for QuickTime

Aug 23, 2009 - 11 Comments

QuickTime  Player Apple’s QuickTime is the go-to Mac OS X app for video playback, but there’s more to QuickTime Player than meets the eye. You can rewind and fast-forward movies, increase the audio level beyond the slider limit, and even scrub frame by frame through the movie like you can in Final Cut Pro! Check out these 15 useful and largely hidden keyboard shortcuts for QuickTime Player, they are sure to improve your QuickTime movie viewing experience… and you’ll probably learn something new!

For what it’s worth, these tricks should work in all versions of QuickTime. If you notice any changes or differences in modern vs older versions, be sure to let us know in the comments below.

Let’s get started learning some awesome Quicktime key tricks:

QuickTime Keyboard Shortcuts

Spacebar – Play and pause video playback
J – Rewind movie, you can J multiple times to rewind the movie faster
K – Pauses the movie
L – Fast forward within the movie, with audio, again you can tap L multiple times to fast forward in the movie at a faster pace
Hold down K and tap J or L – allows you to scrub the video in slow motion, viewing in either rewind or forward frame by frame
I – Sets the “In” or beginning point of the selection
O – Set the “Out” or end point of the selection
Option-Left Arrow – Go to the beginning of the selection of the movie
Option-Right Arrow – Go to end of the selection of the movie
Shift-double-click Command-Left Arrow – Playback the movie in reverse
Option-Up Arrow – Increase maximum audio volume beyond slider level limit
Option-Down Arrow – Mute audio
Up Arrow – Increase volume level
Down Arrow – Decrease volume level
. – pause video playback, using in combination with the Spacebar you can single in on a single frame quite easily

Update: Reader Austin W. noted that many of the above QuickTime shortcuts are not working in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, he has created the following list of working QuickTime Shortcuts for 10.6. Thanks Austin!

QuickTime Keyboard Shortcuts for 10.6 Snow Leopard

Spacebar – Play and pause video playback
Command-Left Arrow – Rewind movie, you can press multiple times to rewind the movie faster
Command-Right Arrow – Fast forward within the movie, with audio, again you can tap multiple times to fast forward in the movie at a faster pace
Left and Right Arrows (With no modifier keys) – allows you to scrub the video in slow motion, viewing in either rewind or forward frame by frame
Option-Left Arrow – Go to the beginning of the selection of the movie
Option-Right Arrow – Go to end of the selection of the movie
Option-Up Arrow – Increase volume to maximum volume
Option-Down Arrow – Mute audio
Up Arrow – Increase volume level
Down Arrow – Decrease volume level

Know any other awesome QuickTime tricks? Let us know in the comments!

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Posted by: Bill Ellis in Mac Apps, Mac OS, Tips & Tricks

11 Comments

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  1. Al in oz says:

    Hey Guys,

    Move the playhead to a specific frame in Quicktime 7

    Open a file in QT 7

    On the far left edge of the timeline, click on drop down option and change the timecode display from Standard to Frames

    Double Click on the frame number (ususally 0 if you’ve just opened the file)

    Type in the reqired frame you want the playhead to move to

    Use Shift + Enter(return) and the playhead will jump to that frame.

    This was super handy for me in a recent situation.

    I recently had to trim the start of some videos for a client, so they could pass it on to their editor with every thing synced up.
    We had 3 sources, 2 cameras and a .mov file feed from a Powerpoint presentation. All the sources had a different starting time.

    So I imported all the files into FCPX and made a Multicam clip, synced via the audio track on all the files.

    I changed the timeline setting to display frames (in FCPX Preferences)

    Identified a starting point where the presenter starts, added a marker

    So, each file needed to be trimmed to that point.

    I used the range tool to select everything before the presenter starts on a given track, and used Control + D to get the duration in frames.

    Then I opened a copy of the source file with Quicktime 7

    In the bottom left corner, changed the display to FRAMES

    Then double click on the 0 frames, and type in the requried frame number to trim to

    Then press Shift + Enter to go the that frame

    Use the I key to make that the IN point

    Option + Right Arrow to go to the end of the video

    O key to set the OUT point

    Edit – Trim to Selection

    Save

    The original video is trimmed perfectly to that frame.

    Did the same on each of the other videos & the client has files with the precise starting times.

    I could have exported them out of FCPX, but that would take more processing time.

    The biggest key was the Shift + Enter key to move the playhead to a specific frame in QT – 7

    Cheers

  2. Spencer Rushlow💚 says:

    Is there a way to change the shortcuts for QuickTime? (e.g.: changing shortcut for ending recording) If so, how do you do it?

  3. Carlos says:

    Is their a way to play all the video clips in one folder without having to open each one automatically?

  4. RickyH says:

    Same thing here as London Sounds said. This comes in extremely handy for presentations as it takes away a lot of the fumbling around. Thank you.

  5. Many thanks for this list of keyboard shortcuts – it all came in very handy when I had to give a video presentation yesterday evening.

  6. BuyClothes says:

    Good blog Wow!ij This s exactly what I was looking for!

  7. Benutzerdame says:

    You did not mention the simple arrow keys for frame-by-frame stepping – thi only works in QT 7, and it’s a feature i really miss in QT for snow leopard!

  8. Laura N says:

    Is there a way to slow down the video and still be able to hear the audio? I am trying to transcribe a video, and I keep having to stop it. I have Quicktime 10.0 and Snow Leopard.

  9. Scott Kublin says:

    Another keyboard shortcut that I just figured out is if you hold down option & command at the same time while clicking the fast forward button, the movie playback speed will increase by .1 increments rather then 1.0 increments that only holding down the command key does.

  10. QT user says:

    Is there anyway to change the full screen keyboard shortcut (CMD+F) of Quicktime 7.5 to “Mouse double click”?

    I am so used to this functionality that I can’t stand this at all.

  11. Austin W. says:

    This would be great if there wasn’t a new version of Quicktime coming out in less than a month with Snow Leopard. I’m currently running OS X 10.6 with Quicktime 10.0, and the keyboard shortcuts have been altered slightly. The biggest change is that the JKL buttons don’t do anything anymore. In fact, there are no keyboard shortcuts involving letters that I am aware of. I’ve taken your list and tried the commands in Quicktime 10.0. Any commands that did not work I’ve removed and I’ve corrected the ones that I knew had an alternative.

    Spacebar – Play and pause video playback
    Command-Left Arrow – Rewind movie, you can press multiple times to rewind the movie faster
    Command-Right Arrow – Fast forward within the movie, with audio, again you can tap multiple times to fast forward in the movie at a faster pace
    Left and Right Arrows (With no modifier keys) – allows you to scrub the video in slow motion, viewing in either rewind or forward frame by frame
    Option-Left Arrow – Go to the beginning of the selection of the movie
    Option-Right Arrow – Go to end of the selection of the movie
    Option-Up Arrow – Increase volume to maximum volume
    Option-Down Arrow – Mute audio
    Up Arrow – Increase volume level
    Down Arrow – Decrease volume level

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