I’m a big fan of using small tweaks to save time and improve the user experience when interacting with Citrix applications and desktops. A while back, I wrote a blog post about adding hotkeys for toggling full-screen desktops using Citrix Workspace app for Windows. Because I’ve used MacOS as my “daily driver” for 15 years now, I wanted to follow up that post with one for MacOS users and detail how to enable full-screen toggle (and other tips!) using Citrix Workspace app for Mac.
The Full-Screen Shortcut
If you are a MacOS user, you’re likely familiar with the shortcut Control + Command + F. You can use this full-screen shortcut to toggle applications between windowed mode and full screen. If you try it now on your web browser, you’ll likely see the browser go into and/or out of full screen as expected. Try this on the Citrix Viewer window with your Citrix virtual desktop running, though, and nothing happens.
So, what are your options?
The options provided are to use the Green Button on the upper left of the window, which will enter / leave full-screen or use the “View” option in the menu bar:
Both options will achieve the outcome you want, but they require mouse movement and clicks, which, depending on your monitor configuration, may not be as fast as a keyboard shortcut, and cumbersome if you are navigating in / out of full-screen frequently. Fortunately, we can pin the “Enter Full Screen” command to a custom system shortcut.
Please note, this process has been tested on Mac OS Mojave, Catalina, and Big Sur, and the flow for setup is identical between these versions.
MacOS allows custom shortcuts to be applied to applications. Just open System Preferences, select Keyboard, go to the Shortcuts tab, and choose “App Shortcuts.”
To add a shortcut, click the “+” button. Hit the Application drop-down, and select Other.
Please note, you might have seen Citrix Workspace in the list of applications and be tempted to select it. DON’T! Citrix Workspace is the app that you use to enumerate / launch applications and manage accounts. Citrix Viewer is the app that connects to apps and desktops, and we need MacOS to map these shortcuts to the Viewer, not the Citrix Workspace app.
After you click “other,” the Finder window will open. Navigate to:
Macintosh HD -> Library -> Application Support -> Citrix Receiver and select “Citrix Viewer.”
Now that you’ve selected Citrix Viewer, you will be asked which Menu item you are looking to map and which key combination you want to use. The Menu Title needs to be exact because the system will just pass the strings entered here to the app. If you have a typo here, you will not get an error, but will also not get the desired action.
Remember, the menu we want to access is under View and called “Enter Full Screen”. When you enter this in the system shortcut, each step must be separated by “->”; the Menu Title we enter for the shortcut is “View->Enter Full Screen”. Then, for the keyboard shortcut, just select the blank field next to Shortcut and press the key combination on your keyboard. It will auto-populate.
Please note, you cannot create a shortcut key based on the Command(Left)+Option. Why? Because this key combination is used to send “Alt” to the remote session. You can use these combined with Control (Control+option+command(left)+Key) or as one or the other (Control+Command(left)+Key). Keep reading for more on Control left vs right and the reserved combinations.
Now click “Add” and we are done!
Let’s test it now to see if it works. Exit any Citrix Viewer windows that are open and relaunch. Now, if you go back to the Menu and look under View, you should see that our shortcut is now listed for “Enter Full Screen”:
If you give this shortcut a try now, the Citrix Viewer should now toggle in and out of full screen.
Mapping Other Non-Mac Keys to Shortcuts
Another scenario that comes up a lot on MacOS clients is passing keys that do not exist on Mac keyboards to a Windows virtual desktop. “Insert” is one such key (useful in Windows-based word processing), but Mac keyboards do not have an “Insert” key. These capabilities are built into the Citrix Viewer menus, as well:
Using the same method, we can map “Insert” to a comfortable keyboard shortcut. Now that we have already added a Citrix Viewer shortcut, simply highlight “Citrix Viewer” in the App Shortcuts window and click the “+” button. There’s no need to find the app in the Library again.
This time, enter the path to the Insert key – Devices->Keyboard->Send Key->Insert – and enter your preferred keyboard shortcut:
Following the same process to get this change into Citrix Viewer (quit all open windows, relaunch), you can navigate back to the menu and see that the shortcut is now applied:
The shortcut should now work in your session.
Other Key Handling and Mac Keyboard Options
Before spending too much time mapping shortcuts for your Citrix Viewer, I suggest you become familiar with how Citrix Viewer handles the map keyboard special keys in general. If you open the “Preferences” pane of the Citrix Viewer and go to the Keyboard tab, you will find useful information and options about how the keyboard is mapped from Mac to Windows.
Please note, the options above are the default, and take special note of the option “Send Windows logo key using Command (right)”. This is very handy because many applications in Windows have shortcuts tied to the Windows key. Another thing to pay attention to is that Citrix Viewer treats Command (Left) and Command (Right) as different keys. Keep that in mind when creating your own shortcuts, and be careful if you’re using the Command (right) key for anything custom!
If you find there are other shortcuts that aren’t working as expected or you want to add something custom, start with the Citrix Workspace app for Mac documentation on Windows Shortcuts and Key combinations. This documentation gets into greater detail on which keys are kept local to the MacOS and which ones are passed to the remote session and if they are manipulated when passed through.
I’m hopeful these tips and tricks will help to improve your user experience with the Citrix Workspace app for MacOS and save you some time throughout your day!
