Pressing a physical ESC key applies with basically any external Bluetooth keyboard that has been connected to iPad, whether a Mac keyboard and almost all generic Bluetooth keyboards for PC as well, as virtually every keyboard includes a hardware ESC escape button (unless of course it’s a MacBook Pro with Touch Bar with virtual escape key which hides and shows depending on what’s going on with the active app, but you probably wouldn’t be using that with iPad anyway so this is unlikely to apply). In that case, just press the ESC key to type the escape key on the Mac or PC keyboard that is connected to iPad.
This is probably obvious, but if the keyboard you’re using with the iPad is a Mac keyboard, like the wonderful Apple Magic Keyboard, or many PC keyboards, then the hardware ESC escape key does exist in the usual spot at the upper left corner of the keyboard. Using a Mac or PC Keyboard with iPad? Press ESC!
The Square / Home button is on many third party iPad keyboards, including the OMOTON Ultra-slim iPad keyboard shown here. Pressing the fn function key and Home (square) button together will mimic pressing the Escape key button on most third party iPad keyboards that have the square / home button on the keyboard. If the iPad keyboard has a square shaped Home button in the upper left corner, you can use that with the FN key combined as a keyboard shortcut to function as an ESC key. Pressing Control and [ will achieve the ESC escape key function on many keyboard and with many apps on iPad, including with the iPad Pro Smart Keyboard, assuming the app(s) in question supports it.Ĭontrol (CTRL) and [ (Open Bracket) is not quite as easy to remember as simply pressing a hardware ESC key, but in many cases it will mimic the escape key and is therefore worth remembering, particularly if you’re using a terminal application like iSH linux shell, Prompt, vim, ssh, or anything similar. Some of these keyboard shortcut options may work in some apps but not others, and some may work with some keyboards but not others, so try each option out on your own. So, how do you type the Escape key on an iPad, iPad Air, or iPad Pro keyboard then? Despite often not having an ESC key, you can type it on most iPad keyboards, and we’ll show you several different ways that you can type Escape on iPad using a variety of options.Ĥ ESC Escape Key Options for iPad Keyboardsĭepending on what keyboard is in use with the iPad Pro, iPad, iPad mini, or iPad Air, you have several different options for typing the Escape key.