Magic Keyboard tab key not navigating form fields in Safari/Chrome

Hello everyone. I am at a complete loss on how to fix this issue. Any help would be really appreciated because this is a really annoying problem to have.


When I am using Safari or Chrome and there are multiple cell boxes on the webpage (username, password, etc.) I am unable to use the tab key on my Magic Keyboard to get to the next box. I have to use option + tab to make it go between the boxes. I have verified that the “Full Keyboard Access” in accessibility is turned off, and I even verified the commands in it for move forward was set to tab and move backward was set to shift + tab. I have checked the Safari and Chrome settings and couldn’t find anything that mentioned tab navigation between cells. When I do use the option + tab to move, it highlights the box or link that it is on with a blue box, which is new.


Any insight on what I can do to possibly fix the issue? I never realized how much I used tab to navigate until I couldn’t use it anymore.

iPad Pro

Posted on Sep 9, 2026 1:34 PM

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Posted on Sep 9, 2026 1:42 PM

To fix this issue, you need to turn off a system-level macOS keyboard shortcut setting that has intercepted your standard Tab behavior. 

When "Change the way Tab moves focus" is enabled in macOS, it swaps the traditional behavior of the Taband Option + Tab keys. This explains why you suddenly have to use Option + Tab and why it creates a new blue highlight box around items. 

Follow these steps to revert the setting:

Try pressing Control + F1 on your keyboard. This is the universal macOS toggle to switch between text-field-only navigation and full keyboard control navigation. Test a webpage to see if Tab goes back to normal. 

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Magic Keyboard tab key not navigating form fields in Safari/Chrome

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