What Is the Pause and Break Key on the Keyboard For?

By Timothy Tibbetts

Here's an interesting question we received recently. Every keyboard has a Pause - Break key. Why is it there and what is it used for?

Initially, the Pause - Break key was designed to halt a process temporarily. Most people would use the Pause - Break key to pause a game.

Most full-size keyboards offer the Pause - Break key combination while many notebooks, laptops, and compacts only offer the Pause button, sometimes in conjunction with another key like Insert. And, sometimes there's no Pause button at all.

If you do have a Pause button and need the Break key, you might have to search for the keyboard replacement combination because they can vary widely from computer to computer. Examples include Ctrl + Fn + F11, Fn + B, Fn + Ctrl + B, Fn + B, and Fn + Shift just to name a few.

The key has little use anymore, but there are some uses for Pause and Break.

Press your Windows Key + Pause and the System Properties of your Control Panel will open. This is the only default keyboard combination that uses Pause. No combination uses Break.

Pause your screen when booting (POST) allowing you to see an error, for example.

Programmers or coders using continuous output can use the Pause key as needed.

Pause the screen when using the Command Prompt or PowerShell. When pinging an address, for example, press CTRL + Break for the output. Press any key to continue pinging.

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