In testing with Chrome OS, the ability to completely change keyboard shortcuts was seen. This is a big improvement for Chromebooks.

About Chromebooks(opens in new tab) noticed that the latest beta version of Chrome OS 111 has a new keyboard shortcuts app that lets you change the way the shortcuts work.

Now, this feature isn’t working yet. You can change the shortcuts in the new panel, but they aren’t actually changed. This is because the feature is still being tested.

In fact, in the Chrome OS 111 beta, the shortcuts app is still hidden from testers. To find the shortcuts panel, you have to mess around with some experimental flags.

Even so, it’s great to know that Chrome OS will soon let you change the shortcuts you use.

Analysis: An easier life for people migrating to a Chromebook

This isn’t a big surprise, since there have been rumours for a while that Google plans to add this feature to Chrome OS.

At the moment, you can only change a few basic parts of the keyboard, like how the “search” key works. With this change, you’ll have full control over all of the shortcuts in the library (in theory anyway, if the final implementation pans out as it looks now).

This means that people who are used to Windows or macOS can keep their favourite shortcuts by remapping them on Chrome OS. This makes it easier for them to use a Chromebook, which they may have just bought and have never used before.

This feature might have been in earlier beta versions of Chrome OS, but About Chromebooks just found it. So, it’s possible that Google has been experimenting with the idea in the background for a while. Hopefully, we’ll see it in beta soon, and then in full release after that.