How to speed up the left and right arrow keys for editing text?

macos keyboard cursor-position arrow-keys performance
Blue picture Blue · Dec 17, 2010 · Viewed 33.4k times · Source

Is it just me, or do other people find that the left and right arrow keys on MacOS are unusually slow for editing text?

Compared to my Windows machines, positioning the cursor with left/right arrow keys seems to take twice as long on the Mac. The up/down arrows seem to be speedy enough, but left/right arrows just crawl. I notice it the most in Terminal, editing recently used commands, and I'm noticing it right now while text in a browser form.

Is there a Mac preference I can set to speed up the response to these keys?

Answer

Vadim picture Vadim · Dec 17, 2010

To change how fast a key repeats when holding it down, adjust this setting:

"System Preferences" -> "Keyboard" -> "Keyboard Tab" -> "Keyboard Repeat"

To change how long you have to hold it down before it registers as repeating, adjust this setting:

"System Preferences" -> "Keyboard" -> "Keyboard Tab" -> "Delay Until Repeat"

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