Omgest

Control accessibility options with your keyboard and Siri

You can use the keyboard shortcuts below to control accessibility options on your Mac, or you can ask Siri to perform these functions. For example, ask Siri to 'Turn VoiceOver On.'

Action	Shortcut
Display Accessibility Options	Option-Command-F5 or triple-press Touch ID (power button) on supported models1
Turn VoiceOver on or off2	Command-F5 or Fn-Command-F5 or hold Command and triple-press Touch ID on supported models1
Open VoiceOver Utility, if VoiceOver is turned on2	Control-Option-F8 or Fn-Control-Option-F8
Turn zoom on or off3	Option-Command-8
Zoom in3	Option-Command-Plus Sign (+)
Zoom out3	Option-Command-Minus Sign (-)
Turn the Invert colors setting on or off	Control-Option-Command-8
Reduce contrast	Control-Option-Command-Comma (,)
Increase contrast	Control-Option-Command-Period (.)

1. MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2016), MacBook Pro (13-inch, Late 2016, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
2. To use VoiceOver and VoiceOver Utility, you might need to turn on 'Use all F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys' in Keyboard preferences. You might also need to make VoiceOver ignore the next key press before you can use some of the other Mac keyboard shortcuts.
3. To use the zoom shortcuts, you might need to turn on 'Use keyboard shortcuts to zoom' in Accessibility preferences.

To solve this problem for the Windows users, and to open the Settings Panel with any other keyboard shortcut, you must follow the guide below. There is another way of opening your Settings Panel by pinning it to the taskbar and opening it by just clicking on that pinned icon, but this guide will help you with the opening of the Settings Panel through any keyboard shortcut of your ease and choice.

Use your keyboard like a mouse with Full Keyboard Access

Full Keyboard Access lets you use your keyboard like a mouse to navigate and interact with items on the screen. With Full Keyboard Access, you use the Tab key and arrow keys to navigate to items on the screen, and the Space bar to select an item.

Follow these steps to turn on Full Keyboard Access:

1. Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Keyboard.
2. Click Shortcuts.
3. To navigate only to text boxes and lists on the screen, select 'Text boxes and lists only.' To enable Full Keyboard Access and navigate to all controls on the screen, select 'All controls.'
   

Action	Shortcut
Switch between navigation of all controls on the screen, or only text boxes and lists	Control-F7
Move to the next control	Tab
Move to the previous control	Shift-Tab
Move to the next control when a text field is selected	Control-Tab
Move the focus to the previous grouping of controls	Control-Shift-Tab
Move to the adjacent item in a list, tab group, or menu Move sliders and adjusters (Up Arrow to increase values, Down Arrow to decrease values)	Arrow keys
Move to a control adjacent to the text field	Control–Arrow keys
Choose the selected menu item	Space bar
Click the default button or perform the default action	Return or Enter
Click the Cancel button or close a menu without choosing an item	Esc
Move the focus to the previous panel	Control-Shift-F6
Move to the status menu in the menu bar	Control-F8
Activate the next open window in the front app	Command-Accent (`)
Activate the previous open window in the front app	Shift-Command-Accent (`)
Move the focus to the window drawer	Option-Command-Accent (`)

Navigate menus with your keyboard

To use these shortcuts, first press Control-F2 to put the focus on the menu bar.

Action	Shortcut
Move from menu to menu	Left Arrow, Right Arrow
Open a selected menu	Return
Move to menu items in the selected menu	Up Arrow, Down Arrow
Jump to a menu item in the selected menu	Type the menu item's name
Choose the selected menu item	Return

Use Mouse Keys to move the mouse pointer

When Mouse Keys is turned on, you can use the keyboard or numeric keypad keys to move the mouse pointer.

Action	Shortcut
Move up	8 or numeric keypad 8
Move down	K or numeric keypad 2
Move left	U or numeric keypad 4
Move right	O or numeric keypad 6
Move diagonally down and to the left	J or numeric keypad 1
Move diagonally down and to the right	L or numeric keypad 3
Move diagonally up and to the left	7 or numeric keypad 7
Move diagonally up and to the right	9 or numeric keypad 9
Press the mouse button	I or numeric keypad 5
Hold the mouse button	M or numeric keypad 0
Release the mouse button	. (period)

Learn more

• Change the behavior of the function keys or the Caps Lock, Control, Option, and Command keys
• Ask Siri to perform some of these commands, or ask Siri 'What can you do?' to find out more

I accidentally disabled the Bluetooth on Mac OS. I can't enable it because my Bluetooth based keyboard and mouse are now disabled.

I found a USB based keyboard I can use, so how can I enable Bluetooth just using my keyboard?

Is there a command line way or shortcut I can use?

Nick Josevski

16 Answers

Here's a sequence that worked for me (OS X 10.6.7) when I had the same issue.

1. Press ⌘Space to activate Spotlight.

2. Type 'bluetooth', choose the 'Bluetooth File Exchange' application, and press Return.

3. Bluetooth File Exchange will prompt to enable the bluetooth hardware, press Return.

4. Bluetooth is now enabled and you can quit Bluetooth File Exchange.

Gaff

1. ⌘+Tab until you get to the Finder.
2. ⇧+⌘+G to bring up the Go To dialog: type in /Applications.
3. Just type the letters 'sys' and your highlight should be over 'System Preferences'. Press ⌘+O to open it.
4. In System Preferences, the cursor should be in the search field. Just type in 'bluetooth' and press Return. Now you're in the Bluetooth preferences.
5. Press Tab, and there should be a faint highlight on the 'On' checkbox.
6. Press Space, and that should turn it on.

If you happen to have Quicksilver installed, invoke System Preferences from there and go directly to step 4 above. Or without Quicksilver press ⌘+Space to activate Spotlight, type 'bluetooth' and go directly to the Bluetooth preference pane, and step 5 above.

If you don't have a Command key on the keyboard, then hit Ctrl+F2 to activate the Apple menu, press ↓ and go to System Preferences and continue at step 4 above.

If in Step 5 pressing Tab does not navigate through all inputs, then press Ctrl+F7 to activate Full Keyboard Access. When done, press Ctrl+F7 again to disable it.

Indrekfidelifideli

I've been using blueutil occasionally - seems to work. It's free and comes with the source code.

Older versions:

Usage:

Print bluetooth status
blueutil status

Switch bluetooth on
blueutil on

Switch bluetooth off
blueutil off

I wanted to mention a little known feature of the OS:

If you reboot and unplug the keyboard, the OS will automatically enable Bluetooth and start looking for BT keyboards and mice. From Apple's official documentation:

1. Turn on your Mac.
2. If no USB mouse is detected, the Mac will power up to the Bluetooth trackpad or mouse setup assistant. The screen should alternate between an image of the trackpad and one of the mouse, as below.

However, this is apparently controlled by a Bluetooth setting which might be disabled:

If this setting has been disabled by the user (it is enabled by default) then this method will not work.If these options have been disabled, you can re-enable them using the terminal commands:

(However you might need to SSH in to do that, a which point one of the other answers might be better)

JoshJosh

Here is a faster way which I just did on Lion:

1. Command + Spacebar to start spotlight
2. type 'bluetooth'
3. Select 'Bluetooth File Exchange'
4. This will trigger a warning that bluetooth is disabled, the enable button should be highlighted so all you need to do now is press return

Use Alfred and the Bluetooth workflow

Alfred
http://www.alfredapp.com

Bluetooth Toggle

spuderspuder

This method required the bluetooth menu bar status icon to show and used AppleScript GUI scripting (requires System Preferences » Universal Access » Support for assistive devices IIRC):

Call from command line using osascript:

^{Do not edit this post. I don't care if you don't like the scroll bar. It's easier to select by triple-clicking this way.}

Alternatively, you can launch System Preferences and click the checkbox:

While a GUI process launches, it isn't visible except for the Dock icon.

Daniel Beck♦Daniel Beck

How To Use Manual Keystroke To Open Mac Settings On Mac

• Press ⌘Space, write 'bluetooth'.
• Press the following combination: Fn⌃F7. A light blue frame appears arround the activate box.
• Press spacebar, finished!

slhck

control+F8 activates the status menu.(upper right corner)If bluetooth button is enabled in the status menu, you can select the bluetooth-menu-option using the ↑ ← ↓ → and return to activate bluetooth

Depending on your keyboard preference settings, you may need to press ctrl+fn+F8.

Simply turn on your Mac. press ⌘F then type 'bluetooth' then press ⇥ until you reach the 'bluetooth' icon.

Then ⌘O and ↩ to enable Bluetooth! That's the easiest way to make it!

slhck

In my case, the CTRL+F8 method (posted by PIXIT, down below) is exactly what I need. Here's why:When I change the battery on my Magic Mouse, the computer often fails to reconnect the mouse. The other answers here talk about turning Bluetooth on or off. My Bluetooth is on, but I need to specifically activate the Mouse connection. Going through the status bar with the arrows lets me go down through the menu to My Mouse, and sideways to Connect.

(OS 10.10.3)

If you are using a apply keyboard (wired) - just press Option+F8.If you are using a Windows keyboard (wired) - just press Ctrl+F8.

kenorb

If you are attempting to reinstall OSX from boot media, and your Bluetooth wasn't enabled at the start (still an issue with Mountain Lion Recovery media), Ctrl + fn + F2 gets you to the menus at the top (as described many other places), which contain other useful utilities, like Terminal.

I'm lucky that my mouse was immediately recognized (I'm sure there's ways to delve further once this has been stirred), allowing me to click things which were otherwise completely stymied (like 'install'), through one short terminal command: blued . The Bluetooth daemon kicked up and gave MAC addresses for probably two devices I have currently battery powered, and around. Hope that helps others, rather than forcing us all to get/keep USB wired mice around, dust free, and in workable condition.

Other extraneous USB pointing devices failed where this method succeeded for me. The computer I am working with has a fully powered and interactive Wacom Bamboo tablet-- this doesn't get anyone anywhere since I'm sure drivers aren't included/loaded at the point I found myself.

random♦

If you are using Sierra OS then you can voice activate it through Siri 'Turn on bluetooth', or off for that matter. You had the option to set the keyboard shortcut when you installed Sierra. Otherwise control and space is the default/or via Spotlight.

An updated version of the blueutil can be done using homebrew.

In a terminal:

1. Assure you have homebrew installed:

   if command not found: then install it:

2. update the packages

3. install the package blueutil

4. check the bluetooth status (0 means off, 1 means turned on):

5. set the state:

Scott

I use ⌘^B (Command + Ctrl + B) for this.

First install brewutil,

1. brew update
2. brew install blueutil

Second setup shoutcut,

1. Start Automator.
2. Open File ->New
3. Select Service document type.
4. Now select, Service receives no input in any application
5. Now Add action - Run Shell Script

6. And now enter the following script and click save

7. Now go to System Preferences ->KeyBoard ->Shortcuts ->Services.
8. Go to General section.
9. The service created via automator will be listed there and a shortcut can be set.

The export line should be there even it is included in the ./bash-* files.

How To Use Manual Keystroke To Open Mac Settings Windows 10