Home key
{{Short description|Computer keyboard key}}
{{About|the computer keyboard key|the touch-typing position|Home row|music key signatures|Tonic (music)}}
{{More citations needed|date=January 2008}}
The {{Key press|Home}} key is commonly found on desktop and laptop keyboards. The key has the opposite effect of the End key. In limited-size keyboards where the {{Key press|Home}} key is missing the same functionality can be reached via the key combination of {{Key press|Fn|Left}}.
Its standard symbol {{key top|home|}} from ISO/IEC 9995-7, i.e. {{unichar|21F1|north west arrow to corner}}, is used on some full-size keyboards instead of a possibly localized text label.
Microsoft Windows
In modern Microsoft Windows text editing applications, it is primarily used to return the cursor to the beginning of the line where the cursor is located. When the text is not editable, the {{Key press|Home}} key is used to return to the beginning of the document; this can also be done in editable text if the key is pressed along with {{Key press|Control}}.
The {{Key press|Home}} key can also be used to select all the characters before the cursor in a certain line if pressed along with {{key press|shift}} in selectable text.
macOS
Only full-sized Apple keyboards have a {{Key press|Home}} key. In macOS single line text fields, the key works like it does in DOS and MS Windows, going back to the days of dumb terminals, where Home moves to the start of the line. In multiline word processors, when the key is pressed, the window scrolls to the top, while the caret position does not change at all; that is, the {{Key press|Home}} key is tied to the current window, not the text box being edited.{{Cite web |url=http://edr.euro.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGUserInput/XHIGUserInput.html |title=Apple Human Interface Guidelines: User Input |access-date=2010-06-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100603221626/http://edr.euro.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGUserInput/XHIGUserInput.html |archive-date=2010-06-03 |url-status=dead }}{{cite web |url=http://evansweb.info/articles/2005/03/24/mac-os-x-and-home-end-keys |title=Mac OS X and Home / End keys |access-date=2006-10-09 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061106225709/http://evansweb.info/articles/2005/03/24/mac-os-x-and-home-end-keys |archive-date=2006-11-06 }} On Apple keyboards that do not have a Home key, one can press {{key press|Fn|left}} for the Home key functionality described above. To get the same result as the Windows platform (that is, moving the insertion point to the beginning of the current line of text), one can press {{Key press|Command|Left}}. An application can also be used to change this behavior.{{Cite web|url=https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/16135/remap-home-and-end-to-beginning-and-end-of-line|title=macos - Remap "Home" and "End" to beginning and end of line|website=Ask Different}}
Linux
In Linux, the {{Key press|Home}} key has basically the same functionality as it does on Windows. It returns the cursor to the beginning of the line in editable text, and otherwise scrolls a scrollable document to the beginning. Also, like Windows, the {{Key press|Home}} key can be used to select all the characters before the cursor in a certain line if pressed along with {{Key press|shift}} in editable text.
Non-GUI applications
A {{Key press|Home}} key was present on the ADM-3A and many other pre-PC dumb terminal keyboards. Its application here was to return the text cursor to the beginning of the screen line.