Easy Ease in After Effects: the shortcut, and why it greys out

What is the Easy Ease shortcut in After Effects?

Easy Ease is F9, the same key on Windows and macOS. Adobe's After Effects keyboard shortcut reference lists it as "Easy ease selected keyframes", next to separate commands that ease only the in side or only the out side. We copied the rows below from that page on 3 November 2026.

You press these keys just before and after F9, to find the keyframes and check the result:

For every other key, from trimming layers to the work area, see our full list of After Effects keyboard shortcuts.

How do I apply Easy Ease to keyframes, step by step?

Select the keyframes, then press F9. The whole job is six steps. The first three are about selection, because the command only touches selected keyframes.

1. In the Timeline panel, select the layer you animated.
2. Press U to show only the properties that have keyframes. If you know which one you want, press P, S or T for Position, Scale or Opacity instead.
3. Select the keyframes you want to soften. A selected layer with no selected keyframes is not enough: Adobe names the command "Easy ease selected keyframes".
4. Press F9. To ease one side only, press Shift + F9 for in or Ctrl + Shift + F9 (Command + Shift + F9) for out.
5. Press Shift + F3 to switch from layer bar mode to the Graph Editor and check the result. Press it again to go back.
6. Press Spacebar to preview. If the move feels wrong, Ctrl + Z (Command + Z) takes it back.

We leave one thing out on purpose. Adobe's shortcut reference gives the keys but not the menu path for Easy Ease, and the interpolation help page text we tried to check was not available. Rather than guess a menu path, use the keys. You can also search the Command list in the shortcut editor for "ease" (see the section on changing the shortcut below).

When should I use Ease In, Ease Out or Hold instead of F9?

Use Shift + F9 or Ctrl/Command + Shift + F9 when only one side of a keyframe should be eased. Use Ctrl + Alt + H (Command + Option + H) when you want hold interpolation. Adobe lists Easy Ease, Ease In and Ease Out as three separate commands, so you choose which side of the selected keyframes changes.

A common case is a title that slides in and stops. F9 on both keyframes eases both of them. If you only want the landing eased, select just the last keyframe and press Shift + F9 to ease its in side. Then preview both versions and compare.

Three more keyframe commands sit in the same group of Adobe's list:

• Hold or Auto Bezier, Ctrl + Alt + H (Command + Option + H). Adobe names the command "Set keyframe interpolation method to hold or Auto Bezier".
• Set interpolation, Ctrl + Alt + K (Command + Option + K), in layer bar mode. Use it to switch selected keyframes to a different interpolation after you have eased them.
• Set velocity, Ctrl + Shift + K (Command + Shift + K). Adobe names it "Set velocity for selected keyframes".

For a move that overshoots and settles, see our After Effects bounce expression guide, which covers the inertial bounce.

Why is Easy Ease greyed out, or why does F9 do nothing?

Check six things, in this order:

• nothing is selected
• macOS is taking F9
• the MacBook F-keys need Fn
• a panel shortcut is overriding it
• the shortcut set has changed
• another app is grabbing the key

Adobe's shortcut reference gives no fix steps, so these checks are built from what that page does say.

1. No keyframes are selected

The command is "Easy ease selected keyframes". With a layer selected but no keyframes, there is nothing for it to act on. Press U on the layer, select the keyframes themselves, then press F9 again.

2. macOS is using F9

Adobe's reference says shortcuts using F9 to F12 may conflict with shortcuts used by the operating system. It points to macOS Help to reassign the system's Dashboard and Exposé shortcuts. If F9 triggers something in macOS instead, After Effects may not get the key.

3. The MacBook F-keys need Fn

On a MacBook keyboard, press Fn + F9, or turn on the macOS keyboard setting "Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys". Our own Mac install guide gives the same advice for mouzeclick's wheels on F8 and F9.

4. A panel shortcut is overriding it

Adobe explains that when a Panel shortcut has the same key as an Application shortcut, the application-wide one stops working while that panel is active. Open the shortcut editor and hover over F9. The tool tip shows the full command name and whether it is an Application or Panel shortcut.

5. Your shortcut set changed F9

After Effects shows the "After Effects Default" preset by default. If you or a colleague loaded another set, F9 may now run something else. Check the keyboard layout in the editor: grey keys have no shortcut, purple keys are application-wide and green keys are panel-specific.

6. Another app grabs F9 first

A utility with a global F9 hotkey can catch the key before After Effects sees it. If you run mouzeclick, its Orbit switch is set to F9. Give it another key or a mouse button in the app and F9 goes back to After Effects.

How do I use the Easy Ease shortcut on a Mac?

On a Mac, Easy Ease is still F9, Ease In is Shift + F9 and Ease Out is Command + Shift + F9. The hard part is getting F9 through macOS. Try these in order:

1. Press Fn + F9 on a MacBook keyboard. This is the quickest test.
2. Turn on "Use F1, F2, etc. keys as standard function keys" in the macOS keyboard settings if you use F-keys all day in After Effects.
3. Free F9 in macOS. Adobe's reference notes that F9 to F12 may clash with system shortcuts and sends you to macOS Help to reassign them.
4. Give Easy Ease a key macOS doesn't use. Open After Effects' shortcut editor with Option + Command + ' and assign a new key. The steps are in the section on changing the shortcut, below.

You can also put these keys on a mouse button in After Effects. The mouse section below covers that, including what to test first on a Mac. For general button mapping on macOS, see our guide to remapping mouse buttons on a Mac.

How does Easy Ease look in the After Effects Graph Editor?

Press Shift + F3 after easing. Adobe lists it as the toggle between Graph Editor and layer bar modes. The same key takes you into the Graph Editor to look at the eased keyframes, and back to layer bars when you are done.

A practical loop for tuning an ease:

1. Ease the keyframes with F9, or one side with the Shift versions.
2. Open the Graph Editor with Shift + F3 and check the shape.
3. To set velocity for the selected keyframes, press Ctrl + Shift + K (Command + Shift + K).
4. Preview with Spacebar, adjust, repeat.

Adobe's shortcut reference does not describe the Graph Editor's settings, and the help page on interpolation was not readable when we checked, so we don't describe its controls here.

Third-party curve editors

If you ease the same curves on every job, a curve editor saves redrawing them. Flow is a collaboration between Zack Lovatt and renderTom, sold on aescripts. It has two parts: a Library, and a Graph Editor built for easing, which the maker pitches as a modern, snappier, normalized replacement for After Effects' own.

Flow ships with 25 commonly used curves and saves your own curves as presets. It can also apply curves as expressions, copy and paste curves as cubic bezier values, and export a library to KBar. Its page lists After Effects 2020 to 2026 and a trial. The newest version in its history is 1.5.2, dated 8 November 2023. Windows and macOS requirements are not listed in the page text. Price: Not published in the page text we checked on 3 November 2026.

We compare Flow with other options in Flow alternatives for After Effects easing. Our own curves are in After Effects easing presets: 44 ready curves, from the Easing lab in the Windows-only After Effects workspace.

How do I change the Easy Ease shortcut in After Effects?

Open Edit › Keyboard Shortcuts, find the command and type a new key. The editor has three parts: the keyboard layout, the Command list and the Key modifier list.

1. Open the editor from Edit › Keyboard Shortcuts, or press Ctrl + Alt + ' on Windows or Option + Command + ' on macOS.
2. Search the Command list for "ease".
3. Select the command and type the shortcut in the text field, or click in its shortcut column and press the keys, modifiers included.
4. Or drag the command from the Command list onto a key in the keyboard layout, or drag a key onto the command.
5. Watch for a conflict warning at the bottom. The clashing command is highlighted in blue, and the Undo and Clear buttons in the lower right let you back out or clear it.
6. Press Save As to keep your changes as your own set.

Three rules from Adobe's page that catch people out:

• Some single and double letters can't be reassigned: A, AA, E, EE, F, FF, L, LL, M, MM, P, PP, R, RR, S, SS, T, TT, U and UU. F9 is not on that list.
• Panel shortcuts only work while that panel is active. Switch to the panel view from the Command drop-down to see them.
• If After Effects doesn't recognise your keyboard, it shows the U.S. English layout.

More on presets, conflicts and sharing sets in our guide to changing keyboard shortcuts in After Effects.

How do I put Easy Ease on a mouse button?

Map the keys to mouse buttons with mouzeclick, a mouse app for Windows and Mac. We make mouzeclick, so read this section as ours. It runs on Windows 10 and 11 and on macOS 12 or newer. It works with any mouse your computer sees, using up to five standard buttons plus scroll and tilt, and needs no driver.

Buttons work per app, so a side button can be F9 in After Effects and something else in Chrome; it changes the moment you switch windows. Each button has eleven slots: tap, hold and move in four directions, a chord with another button, or hold and scroll. Here is one easing layout:

• Mouse 4, tap: F9 (Easy Ease)
• Mouse 4, hold and move up: Shift + F9 (Ease In)
• Mouse 4, hold and move down: Ctrl + Shift + F9, or Command + Shift + F9 on a Mac (Ease Out)
• Mouse 5, tap: Ctrl + Alt + H, or Command + Option + H on a Mac (hold or Auto Bezier)
• Mouse 5, hold and move up: Shift + F3 (Graph Editor)

Record each shortcut onto its slot. You can also put them in the Options wheel, which holds 48 favourites per app. The Orbit switch sits on F9 by default, so move it to another key or button and F9 reaches After Effects.

On a Mac, test before you rely on it. We haven't published a test showing that a mouse button gets F9 past macOS on a MacBook where the system uses that key, so we don't promise it. Try it in the free 3-day trial (no card) with your own keyboard settings. During install you turn on mouzeclick under Accessibility and Input Monitoring; the Mac install steps show where.

What is Windows-only. The After Effects workspace and its Easing lab run on Windows only; the Mac app does not include them. The Easing lab has six curve types and 44 ready curves, with Read, Apply and Auto, and it can copy a curve as an expression. See the workspaces.

On both Windows and Mac you get mouzerun, one of the 22 extensions, whose one-click buttons can be a keyframe ease. You also get the After Effects Tool wheel, with 114 tools in 13 groups. It needs the bridge, installed once from the app's Tool wheel page. One plan covers it all: $25 a month, $249 a year, or $499 once for one of the first 100 lifetime keys.

Questions people ask

Sources

Checked on 2026-11-03. Prices and features change: each link goes to the maker's own page.

1. Adobe: After Effects keyboard shortcuts reference and shortcut editor (checked 3 Nov 2026)
2. aescripts: Flow by Zack Lovatt and renderTom (checked 3 Nov 2026)

Keep reading