Keyboard shortcuts
A handful of shortcuts cover the entire feature surface. Memorize the first three and you can do 80% of what the tool offers.
Overview
Activate WhatTheCSS by clicking its toolbar icon. Once the scanning bar is up, a handful of keys (Space, V, C, X, and the arrows) drive everything else, so your other hand stays on the mouse.
Note
Shortcuts only fire when the extension is active, and never inside form fields, code editors, or other text inputs, so they will not clobber your typing.
Core shortcuts
| Action | Notes | Keys |
|---|---|---|
| Freeze the element | Stops the tooltip following the cursor. Default opens the editor; Peek freezes the summary in place. Press again to unfreeze. | Space |
| Unfreeze or close | Unfreezes the tooltip; from scanning it closes the toolbar. | Esc |
Editing in pinned mode
| Action | Notes | Keys |
|---|---|---|
| Apply edit | Commits the value and applies it to the page. | ↵ |
| Cancel edit | Discards the change, restores the previous value. | Esc |
| Revert this row | Undoes one property. Not a key — click the ↺ control on the edited row. | — |
Cycling modes and formats
| Action | Notes | Keys |
|---|---|---|
| Toggle view | Default and Peek. | V |
| Cycle color format | hex to rgb to hsl to oklch. | C |
| Cycle copy mode | Element CSS to component CSS. | X |
Sampling a color
| Action | Notes | Keys |
|---|---|---|
| Eyedropper | Samples any pixel on screen, including images, video frames, canvas, and gradients, which have no CSS color to read. Copies in your current color format. Free. Chrome's picker takes over the pointer while it is open, so the page will not scroll: bring what you want into view before pressing E. Animations pause for the duration so a carousel cannot slide out from under you. | E |
| Save to library | Saves the pinned element. Pro. | S |
DOM walking
| Action | Notes | Keys |
|---|---|---|
| Walk to parent | Up the tree. | ↑ |
| Walk to first child | Down the tree. | ↓ |
| Previous sibling | Across the tree. | ← |
| Next sibling | Across the tree. | → |
Print sheet
This page is laid out for printing. Press Ctrl P for a single-page reference card with every shortcut. The nav, sidebar, and footer hide automatically.