How to Turn On Caps Lock on a Chromebook

You reached for Caps Lock and found a magnifying glass or a circle instead. Chromebooks put the Search key, also called the Launcher key, in the spot where Caps Lock sits on other keyboards, so Caps Lock exists as a shortcut rather than a dedicated key.

Press Search and Alt together

Hold Search (or Launcher) and press Alt. Caps Lock switches on immediately and everything typed after that is capitalized, including text in web forms, documents, and the address bar.

Confirm the caps indicator appeared

Look at the status area in the bottom right corner, next to the clock. A small caps indicator shows while Caps Lock is on. If no indicator appeared, the shortcut did not register, so press Search + Alt again rather than typing a test sentence.

Turn it back off

Press Search + Alt a second time, or press either Shift key once. Both clear Caps Lock and the indicator disappears. Pressing Shift is the faster habit because it works without looking at the keyboard.

Remap the Search key to Caps Lock

For a key that behaves like Caps Lock on every other keyboard, open Settings, Device, Keyboard, find the row for the Search or Launcher key, and set it to Caps Lock. From then on that key toggles Caps Lock directly and no longer opens the launcher, so use the launcher icon at the left end of the shelf to search instead. The same screen can point another key, such as Escape, at the launcher role.

An external keyboard keeps its own Caps Lock key. Plug in a USB or Bluetooth keyboard and its Caps Lock key works normally, with the indicator still showing in the status area. The Search + Alt shortcut also keeps working on the built-in keyboard at the same time, and the two stay in sync.

On a school or work Chromebook. Administrators can lock device settings, so the key remapping options under Settings, Device, Keyboard may be greyed out or missing. Open chrome://policy to see which policies are applied. The Search + Alt shortcut itself is part of ChromeOS and is normally still available.