How to Moderate WordPress Comments Quickly with Keyboard Shortcuts
Did you know you can moderate WordPress comments quickly with keyboard shortcuts? For years I moderated QuickOnlineTips’ comments (and millions of spam attempts) the slow way, hovering over each comment and clicking Approve, Spam or Trash. Then I switched on WordPress’s hidden comment shortcuts and the moderation queue started flying by. Here’s how to moderate WordPress comments much faster in 2026.
Quick answer: Go to Users > Profile and tick Enable keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation. On the Comments screen press J and K to move down and up, then A to approve, S to mark spam, D to trash and Z to undo. Tick several comments and use Shift + A/S/D/U/Z to act on them all at once.
Table of Contents
1. Turn on keyboard shortcuts
The option is off by default. In WordPress admin go to Users > Profile (each user sets their own), tick Keyboard Shortcuts: Enable keyboard shortcuts for comment moderation, and click Update Profile.
2. Move between comments
Open Comments (or the Pending tab). Nothing is selected at first.
- J: select the next comment (press it once to select the first one).
- K: select the previous comment.
The keys work like Gmail and many feed readers, so they quickly become second nature.
3. Moderate with one key
- A: approve
- S: mark as spam
- D: move to trash
- Z: undo (restore)
- U: unapprove
With your left hand on A, S, D and Z and your right on J and K, you can clear a long queue in a few minutes.
4. Reply and edit
- R: reply to the selected comment inline.
- Q: quick edit the comment text, name or URL.
5. Bulk moderate with Shift
Tick the checkboxes of several comments (or all on the page), then press:
- Shift + A: approve all checked
- Shift + S: mark all as spam
- Shift + D: trash all
- Shift + U: unapprove all
- Shift + Z: restore all
Raise Number of items per page in Screen Options to handle more comments in one go.
More ways to save moderation time
- Stop spam before it arrives with Akismet or Antispam Bee; see the best WordPress plugins to stop comment spam.
- Hold comments with links: in Settings > Discussion, set “Hold a comment in the queue if it contains 1 or more links”. We hold every comment with a web address for review.
- Use the Disallowed Comment Keys box to send common spam words straight to trash.
- Edit from the front end: add an edit all comments link to your posts.
- Moderate on the go with the WordPress or Jetpack mobile app.
FAQ
Why don’t the keyboard shortcuts work?
Make sure the option is ticked in your own profile, click on the comments list first, and don’t have a text box focused.
Do these shortcuts work on the Pending tab?
Yes, on every Comments screen view, including Pending and Spam.
Can I empty all spam at once?
Yes. Open the Spam tab and click Empty Spam.
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Spam comments are really irritating. Many spammers comment as much as they can spam with irrelevant comments. Its good that wordpress has this feature to moderate spam comments.
Cool! Spam comments can really be irritating. Some can even be so beyond their limits that it can cost you your happiness for the day. Another thing that can probably stress you would be the amount of time you have to put in to moderate these comments.
Thanks for this information! Definitely a help!