Control-F2 "Move Focus to Menu Bar" only works occasionally

Question

I don't want to use my trackpad too much due to a strain injury, hence I use the Control F2 "Move Focus to Menu Bar" a lot.

However this feature only works occasionally, it can work for hours and then suddenly stop working, sometimes I can fix in the Keyboard Shortcuts pref pane by unchecking and checking the "Move Focus to Menu Bar" checkbox, at other times it takes a restart of the system.

enter image description here

I'm a big Apple fan-boy, and I always marvel at the cool features in OSX, this is the first time I have a Windows-esque experience with the OSX UI :(

This is a 10 year old question and sitting here in 2021 (almost 2022) it's still an issue in Monterey. SMH — Art Geigel, Dec 12 '21 at 15:30
This is an 11-year-old question and sitting here in 2023 it's still an issue in Ventura. SMH — aafulei, Feb 25 '23 at 05:48
This is a 12 year old question and sitting here in 2024 it's still an issue in Sonoma. — GrahamD, Mar 19 '24 at 20:12

score 22 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 25 '11 at 03:15

22

When you're sure you've got your Fn key settings the way you want them and it STILL doesn't work:

My solution:

Go back into Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts pane.
For the item "Move focus to the menu bar", assign a DIFFERENT function key, other than F2. (Something you're not using, like, say...^F9...or whatever.)
Now use THAT key instead.

Sounds kind of nuts, I know. And it's annoying to use a different key. But I've found that ^F2 just won't consistently work after I've been using enough 3rd party programs, particularly if they're complex. Sometimes ^F3 will also fail, and that keyboard pane can start acting a little strange on its own to be honest. This does seem to work though.

coder

answered Apr 25 '11 at 03:15

coder1000

336

That seems to work! You're lifesaver, thx a bunch :) – timkl Apr 27 '11 at 07:28
Well, some time have past and I have the exactly same problem with this approach :( – timkl Apr 30 '11 at 17:41
2

My experience: after if fails with the "new" key mapping, switch it back to the original one, and it typically starts working again. Then I toggle between these two mappings to make it work when one (mapping) starts failing. Which is unfortunately often. – Johnny Utahh Jan 04 '15 at 20:03
4

What an absolute disaster! I'm still seeing this issue on Yosemite. – Srikanth Jun 23 '15 at 14:37
I noticed "Move focus to the menu bar" got turned off for some reason after upgrading from El Capitan (10.11) to Sierra (10.12) – William Turrell Sep 28 '17 at 08:07
This approach is hit and miss. Frustrating when the latter occurs. – WestCoastProjects Aug 23 '21 at 15:15
Thanks a lot, it annoyed me so much. I thought i messed up the keybinding. – Yarish Kumar Sep 14 '22 at 16:45
I still cannot understand what is "magic" about ^F2 but I won't look a gifted horse in its mouth. Thanks that worked! – CodeSamurai777 Sep 21 '23 at 12:23

score 18 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 03 '12 at 15:30

18

I've had the same struggle with keyboard shortcuts to the menu bar (tried many different combinations).

the only one that has consistently worked is the help shortcut ⇧ ⌘ ? (shift+command+/)

from the help menu just use the arrows to navigate to file/edit/view…

answered Mar 03 '12 at 15:30

salesagent

201

6

This works, plus you can just type the command you want to find immediately. – justingordon Jun 07 '13 at 23:56

score 17 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 03 '12 at 15:01

17

Same here: ^F2 almost never works
Workaround that works for me (without assigning new shortcut): press ^F3 and then immediately ^F2

answered Mar 03 '12 at 15:01

DGT070

171

1

I've solved this problem by mapping a keycombo with Keyboard Maestro to simulate pressing the Apple icon in the upper left corner of the screen. – timkl Mar 05 '12 at 19:13
1

This crazy seeming way does work - even for remapped shortcut (I use ^; instead of ^F2) . Any idea why? – WestCoastProjects Aug 23 '21 at 15:17
Yep, seconding the "why?" because it does work. – Clumsy cat Jul 21 '22 at 09:26

O'Rooney · Answer 4 · 2023-01-09T00:40:16.863

1

From this other question: Why do Ctrl+F2 and Ctrl+F3 sometimes stop working?

A possible cause is accidentally hitting Ctrl-F1, which (wait for it...) disables Keyboard access! So use it again to toggle these keys back on.

edited Jan 09 '23 at 00:40

answered Jul 02 '20 at 00:11

O'Rooney

181

2

I'm trying this shortcut for the first time on macOS Ventura, and if you go into Sys Prefs > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Keyboard, you can see clearly that Ctrl-F1 checks/unchecks a bunch of the shortcuts. Except even when they are checked, "Move focus to the menu bar" (Ctrl-F2) does nothing. – duozmo Dec 30 '22 at 21:56
Hey, so you’re saying that Ctrl-F1 ia definitely not the cause of the problem, at least in your case? – O'Rooney Jan 03 '23 at 06:15
1

Unfortunately, that is what I'm saying. – duozmo Jan 07 '23 at 18:20

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:40

0

I asked a question in the following link and got a hint to answer your question:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16390279/applescript-to-show-apple-menu-bar-items

What I do is as follows:

create an .app using Automator using the scrip in the above link,
create a hot key for the .app,
create a key stroke linked to the hot key (using KeyRemap4MacBook in my case).

It works great for me at least.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:40

Community

1

answered May 06 '13 at 10:26

T_T

505

Or see this question for other ways to assign shortcuts to scripts. Automator applications have a maybe 100-500 ms delay at the start. – Lri May 06 '13 at 12:47

Control-F2 "Move Focus to Menu Bar" only works occasionally

5 Answers5

Linked