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ALT + SEARCH Enables Caps Lock On Chrome OS

Dinsan Francis · · 26 Comments


How do you turn capslock on or off on Chromebook? There is a keyboard shortcut for that: ALT + SEARCH. This article explains how to enable caps on Chrome OS and also set up the search key to behave as the caps lock key permanently.

Caps Lock on Chromebook

Chromebooks, from the very first CR48 made news when their keyboard was introduced without the traditional Caps lock key. Google decided to put a search key instead of that which also doubled as an easy way to open a new tab.

caps lock on Chromebook

The keyboard shortcut is ALT + SEARCH. You can use the same keyboard shortcut or SHIFT key to disable caps lock.

Well, this is the second time this week, the shift key making it to the news. Remember the recent news about the LED inside the shift key starting to work now?

How to Permanently Change Search Key into Caps Lock

There is a way to make the Search key work as caps lock. Always.

  1. Go to settings and search for Keyboard Settings
  2. On the Keyboard Settings pop-up screen, look for the Search dropdown list.
  3. From the Search dropdown list, select Caps Lock
  4. Click OK.

Done! Now try pressing the Search key one more time.

If you have are new Chromebook user, moving from a PC or a Mac, this could take a little bit of getting used to. However, we don’t really use caps lock key that often. You are most likely not to miss the caps lock key on your new Chromebook.

I have been using Chromebook for a long time now and I never felt this as an inconvenience. There were only a handful of occasions where I had to use caps lock. The ALT + SEARCH keyboard shortcut was quite useful in those situations. I could quickly turn caps lock on, type in whatever I was typing and then turn off caps lock with just one tap.

Eventually, you will get used to launching the apps menu using the SEARCH key. I do this every day. It is an easy way to launch the list of apps that I have installed on my Chromebook and find the one that I am looking for.

Hope you learned something new about Chrome OS and Chromebooks today. Do you have more Chrome OS questions? Drop us a comment! Check out our Chromebook resources for more Chromebooks tips!

Questions? Drop me a comment!