# Is there a keyboard shortcut for "In This Topic"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Site Feedback\ **Created:** [August 27, 2026, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-keyboard-shortcut-for-in-this-topic/1032603 "2026-08-27T14:33:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2026, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-keyboard-shortcut-for-in-this-topic/1032603/1 "2026-08-27T14:33:37Z")
Sometimes I do a search on the site on my PC. Then I sometimes want to search again, with the same parameters, but only in the thread itself. If I start a _new_ search, it gives me the option to search “In This Topic” and if I select it, a blue box will appear and then search for the search parameters within the thread. But if I want to preserve my pre existing search parameters, I can’t just _add_ “In This Topic”. I thought that if you started to _type_ “In This Topic” to the search parameters, it would autocomplete but it doesn’t. I have to either erase my parameters or cut and paste them in order to change my search to a thread specific search. Am I typing the wrong thing in the search bar? What’s weird is that on mobile you can probably do it since there is a checkbox for “in this topic”. But even in “advanced search” on my PC with Chrome, it doesn’t have a checkbox for “in this topic”. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2026, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-keyboard-shortcut-for-in-this-topic/1032603/2 "2026-08-27T14:34:46Z")
## **Search Menu** | Description | Key | | --- | --- | | Move selection up and down | **↑** / **↓** | | Insert selection into open composer | **A** | | Launches full page search | **CtrlEnter** | It looks like in the search window type any letter and it prompts a new search and you now choose “In This Topic” and delete the extra letter. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2026, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-keyboard-shortcut-for-in-this-topic/1032603/3 "2026-08-28T18:34:02Z")
So why does the otherwise standard Ctrl-F fail to work for in-page searches on this board? I’m using Chrome on Win11. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2026, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-keyboard-shortcut-for-in-this-topic/1032603/4 "2026-08-28T18:38:40Z")
Ctrl-F doesn’t work as only about 20 posts are loaded on the page at a time. So for small threads it works fine, but when you have 200 posts, nearly useless. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2026, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-keyboard-shortcut-for-in-this-topic/1032603/5 "2026-08-28T20:13:21Z")
As @What_Exit says, ^F can only search the text of the webpage that has been loaded already. For a lot of old-style web pages, the entire page loads all at once (up front when the page is first accessed), and ^F works fine on that Discourse loads only a chunk of comments out of the entire hypothetical page of comments, and unloads them as you scroll away. So you never have the entire “page” of comments to search. The forum’s search tool with “Search this topic” set is the only thing that works for that. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2026, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-keyboard-shortcut-for-in-this-topic/1032603/6 "2026-08-29T11:41:55Z")
There is not a keyboard shortcut for it. I agree there ought to be. You can accomplish your goal with the keyboard, but I bet you’ll find the “cut, click [in this topic], then paste” method you’ve been using is easier. The [in this topic] button inserts the text “topic:[_topic number_]” into the search string. That number identifies the particular topic and can be seen in the url near the right end. e.g. For this thread and post the url is `https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-keyboard-shortcut-for-in-this-topic/1032603/4` and the topic number is 1032603. So clicking the [in this topic] button while in this topic will insert “topic:1032603”. Any other topic has a different number but the idea remains the same. As I said, the cure IMO is worse than the disease.