Turn-off endless toggling when using tool shortcuts in Photoshop 25?

[csscms]

Hi There,

Not sure why but I'm wasting an enormous amount of time selecting tools in Photoshop 2025.

Using the same shortcut to toggle all variations of the tool negates the whole point of shortcuts! We need less thinking, more doing - right?

Answers I've found mention 'spring loaded tools' but when I turn this preference off, no joy.

Any help much appreciated.

Cheers, Ben

• Photoshop 25.5.0
• MacOS 13.6.3

[Bojan Živković]

Do you require assistance with shortcuts? Could you please specify your exact issue?

You can change or modify the keyboard shortcuts for tools in Photoshop. Are you aware of that?

[D Fosse]

Yes, the toolbar is fully customizable. Specifically, you can drag a tool out of a group and give it its own independent place in the toolbar.

When done, save it as part of your workspace, along with your custom keyboard shortcuts.

[csscms]

@D Fosse & @Bojan Živković See attached. Notice how multiple tools in v25 use the same shortcut?

Questions...

1.
Are you saying this change is a new 'feature' and to fix it, we have to change tool shortcuts individually as needed? Then save a new workspace?

2.
Or are you saying that tool shortcuts have NOT changed in v25 and therefore, I'm experiencing a weird upgrade bug that has reset tool shortcuts which I need to change back by hand?

3.
Or are you saying it's been this way for a while, so there's some other preference or change which explains why the tools keep toggling/cycling in v25?

More context

I never had to toggle through the tools in v24.

e.g. If the move tool was already selected and I hit 'v', PS didn't toggle to the crop tool. Likewise with the other tools that share the same shortcut.

Sorry if I'm missing something basic but I'm just trying to understand the true cause of the problem, incase I don't have to modify EVERY SINGLE TOOL shortcut by hand!

Hope that makes more sense. Cheers, Ben

[Conrad_C]

Using the same shortcut to toggle all variations of the tool negates the whole point of shortcuts! We need less thinking, more doing - right?

By @csscms

It’s not quite clear what the problem is, because this could be different issues people have with the tool shortcuts. Which are not all bugs because some people insist it has to work one way, and other people insist it has to work the opposite way, so there are settings to make it work the way you want.

If the problem is you press the same single-key shortcut and it keeps going to another tool in that tool group, you can stop that by choosing Photoshop 202x > Settings > Tools and enabling Use Shift Key for Tool Switch. When enabled, the same key sticks to whichever tool is in front of that group, and will not cycle through the other tools unless you also hold down the Shift key.

If the problem is that you don’t want any other tools in the same group regardless of how the shortcut works, you can customize the Tools panel (Edit > Toolbar). If you like to make your own workspaces, a customized Tools panel can be saved as part of a custom workspace.

If the problem is that you wish each tool in a tool group had its own separate single-key shortcut, you can customize those tool shortcuts in Edit > Toolbar or Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts.

[csscms]

@Conrad_C  OK but are you're saying this is normal? I'd rather find the actual cause of the problem and avoid changing every tool shortcut by hand.

In PS v24, hitting 'v' while already on the move tool, didn't toggle to the crop tool for me. Is this some sort of change in v25 or am I experiencing a bug?

[D Fosse]

You're not explaining this very well. The Move tool toggling to the Crop tool when hitting V? That doesn't make any sense.

Just guessing, but trying to piece together what you're saying, it seems checking "Shift Key for Tool Shortcuts" might solve your problem. Then the shortcut will always go to the tool at the top of the group - which is also the one showing in the toolbar.

Or maybe turning off "Spring Loaded Shortcuts"? This is a feature that loads the tool as long as the shortcut is held, and then returns to the previous tool when the key is released. There is also a timing setting for this in Preferences (how long the key initially needs to be held for the return to happen).

Nothing about tool shortcuts has changed to my knowledge.

[csscms · Accepted solution]

Just guessing, but trying to piece together what you're saying, it seems checking "Shift Key for Tool Shortcuts" might solve your problem. Then the shortcut will always go to the tool at the top of the group - which is also the one showing in the toolbar.

By @D Fosse

That's it. Had just found this post before responding: https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/selecting-a-tool-with-shortcut-change...

And @Conrad_C Posted the correct answer in that thread.

This was obviously caused by preferences not coming accross after upgrading (question 3 in my post above) so have noted this as another preference to check after upgrading in future.

@D Fosse Honestly, I explained that hitting tool shortcuts was toggling through all tools in the list in almost every post - some had screenshots and everything! Sesh.

Will mark this post as the correct answer as it links to the answer thread.

[Conrad_C]

(Edit: It looks like I missed your earlier reply, where you figured out it was about the Use Shift Key For Tool Switch setting, which I covered both earlier in this thread and in the other one that was linked to. But I’ll leave this reply up anyway in case it helps clear it up for someone else.)

In PS v24, hitting 'v' while already on the move tool, didn't toggle to the crop tool for me. Is this some sort of change in v25 or am I experiencing a bug?

By @csscms

These tool shortcuts have not changed in many years, and what you are describing is not consistent with Photoshop defaults. Because the V shortcut has never toggled to the Crop tool, the V shortcut only cycles among the Move tool group, and cannot cross over to the Crop tool group unless the tools were rearranged in a non-default way.

If you are on the Move tool, the Photoshop default single-key shortcut to get to the Crop tool is the C key, not the V key. This is shown in the picture below and also documented here:

Default keyboard shortcuts (Adobe help article)

[csscms]

As noted above, this was an error, hitting v toggles to the artboard tool and the result looks similar to crop.

The issue is that the 'Use Shift Key for Tool Switch' preference got turned off during the upgrade - I didn't touch it. But I've noticed this across all Adobe apps after upgrades from time-to-time.

I also asked if a preference could be causing this too - right?

Beleive it or not, I've searched a lot for this but good results often depend on knowing correct search terms. But if you know the correct search terms for an obscure problem, then you probably already know the answer - right? Hence my post.