Safari Tabs like Firefox / Chrome

Question

Two things I miss from Firefox and Chrome when using Safari on Mac are the Command + Option + Arrows, that are replaced by Control + Tab or Command + Shift + Arrows, and specially the Command + #number, which will invoke bookmarks instead of tabs.

So I want to gather up ideas here on how to fix this. I've already found some on google, but I wish they were simpler - there could be a way to automate the setup.

edit: And that it wouldn't need a background app runnning.

Answer 1

Disclaimer

Actually, there is generic answer from @donut -- thanks for this contribution! However, it wasn't clear from me when I met it. Thus, let me to concrete it exactly for Command + Option + Left/Right as it was asked initially.

Solution for using Command + Option + Left/Right in Safari

1. Go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > App Shortcuts
2. Click "+" button
3. Chose Safari within Application list
4. Type Show Next Tab for Menu Title
5. For Keyboard Shortcut press Command + Option + Right
6. Do the same for Show Previous Tab

Solution for using Command + 1, 2, 3... in Safari

1. Go to menu Safari > Preferences > Tabs
2. Check option Use ⌘-1 through ⌘-9 to switch tabs

Answer 2

Just as reference, and as a half-answer, following I'll summarize the options I've found. They came from two similar approaches, one from justinblanton.com and another from pugio.net.

Summing up, they both use FastScripts and this applescript:

try
    tell front window of application "Safari" to set current tab to tab 1
on error
    tell front window of application "Safari" to set current tab to last tab
end try

You'd have to save 9 files of this in ~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Safari, and give them all shortcuts in FastScript.

In my case, the 9th one in my case have just the "last tab" 1 line and no "try", and I got the SafariTabs.zip file from pugio and put it on root scripts, in /Library/Scripts/Applications, rather than generating them and putting under Users.

To re-enforce: I don't like this answer because it uses third-party backgrounded application. I wish a way to tweak my system, could be using the same application, but not needing more stuff running on my machine in the background.

Answer 3

You should be able to override tab switching shortcut keys with the Keyboard Shortcuts override in the Keyboard & Mouse preference pane.

So... Top-left Apple Icon > System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts > + button. Follow the directions there.

Answer 4

For tab switching, you can use SafariStand, which has a nice feature for it : use , or .

For direct access to tabs, you can use Saft, which allows you to directly access tabs with Ctrl-#number.

Both plugins have useful features

Answer 5

While I realize this post is quite old, I've found another solution that is a bit easier to implement, and built into a fairly common/awesome piece of Mac software, Alfred.

Using Alfred workflows from "MacGeeky" posted here, you can regain direct numbered tab access in Safari via whatever hotkey you define (in my case, I like the Google Chrome implementation as well and use Command-1, Command-2, etc.).