It's a small question, how to navigate to a linked cell on a Mac, but it exposes a much larger truth about how we work. The user who posted this is not asking for a feature; they are asking for a way to move faster, to stop breaking their flow every time they need to trace where a number came from. That desire for efficiency is exactly where traditional spreadsheets start to show their age.
For years, Excel users on Mac have faced this inconsistency. The Ctrl+[ shortcut that jumps to precedent cells on Windows simply does not work the same way on macOS. The workarounds, double-clicking, using the Go To menu, or manually scanning formulas, are all slower and more error-prone. This is not a criticism of the user. It is a criticism of the tool. When a basic navigation task requires a forum post, the interface has failed its purpose. The real issue is not the missing shortcut; it is that spreadsheets still expect you to memorize arcane key combinations instead of understanding your intent.
What this tells us is that the spreadsheet itself needs to become smarter. If you have to hunt for cell references, you are losing time that could be spent analyzing or acting on the data. An AI-native approach would not ask you to remember a shortcut. It would let you ask, "Where does this value come from?" and instantly show you the chain, visually and without friction. It would learn your most common navigation patterns and offer them proactively. The goal is not to replace shortcuts but to make them unnecessary for the majority of interactions.
So here is the practical takeaway: if you are still memorizing obscure key combinations to navigate your spreadsheets, you are working harder than you need to. The tools should adapt to you, not the other way around. Explore solutions that treat data as a conversation, not a maze of cell references. The shortcut you are looking for is not on your keyboard, it is in how the software understands your question.