Keyboard Shortcuts ⌨ ❤️

Shortcuts are amazing. I’m trying to get better with useful shortcuts in all of my favorite products as well as my OS(macOS).

Here’s a list of my favorite shortcuts on some of the applications I use most often. There are only so many I know, so if you have any you’d like to share, please add them as a comment, tweet me, or email me your favorite keyboard shortcut.

macOS

Text Deletion

• Fn+Delete: Erase one character right of the text cursor
• Option+Delete: Erase from text cursor to previous word ← my favorite
• Cmd+Delete: Erase from text cursor to beginning of line

Text Navigation

• Cmd+(←, ↑, →, ↓): Move text cursor to the extreme of that direction
• Option+(←, →): Move text cursor back/forward one word
• Option+(↑, ↓): Move up to beginning of previous line/end of next line

Other

• Cmd+Z: Undo
• Cmd+Shift+Z: Undo the undo ← a life saver
• Cmd+Z → Cmd+Shift+Z: …Nothing :)
• Ctrl+Cmd+Space: Emojis 💩

App Navigation & Management

• Cmd+Tab: Switch apps
• Alt+Tab: Switch windows. Hold shift to go in reverse direction
• Cmd+~: Switch windows of the same app ← super useful
• Cmd+M: Minimize window(only way to get it back is from the Dock)
• Cmd+H: Hide window
• Cmd+W: Close window
• Cmd+Q: Close all windows of this app and end the apps process
• Cmd+, : Settings page

Apps & Websites

Chrome Tab Navigation & Management

• Ctrl+Tab: Next tab
• Ctrl+Shift+Tab: Previous tab
• Cmd+(1–8): Go to 1st-8th tab ← huge time saver
• Cmd+9: Go to last tab
• Cmd+L: Go to URL bar
• Cmd+(←, →): Go to previous/next page
• Cmd+(↑, ↓): Go to top/bottom of page
• Cmd+W: Delete tab
• Shift+Click a different tab: Select multiple tabs. Cmd+W: Close multiple tabs
• Cmd+Shift+T: Open last closed tab

iTerm2

• Ctrl+R: Reverse search a command ← one of the coolest
• Ctrl+A or Fn+←: Beginning of line
• Ctrl+E or Fn+→: End of line
• Ctrl+U: Erase the whole command

Slack

• Cmd+(1–9): Switch to the (n)th team
• Cmd+K: Jump to a conversation(channel or direct message)
• Option+(↑,↓): Go up/down a channel from the selected channel
• Shift+Option+(↑,↓): Go to the previous/next unread channel
• Option+Click: Mark message as unread

Messenger

• Option+(↑,↓): Go to the previous/next conversation ← mindblown

—

Shortcuts recommended by readers:

Screenshots

• Cmd+Shift+4: Drag screenshot
• Cmd+Shift+4 then Space: Screenshot of a window
• Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+4: Screenshot into clipboard

Finder

• Cmd-Shift-C: Go to Computer Directory
• Cmd-Shift-H: Go to Home Directory
• Cmd-Shift-A: Go to Applications Directory
• Cmd-Shift-Delete: Empty Trash

Chrome

• Cmd+Option+J: Opens console
• Cmd+Option+I: Inspect Element
• Cmd+Q note: Click Chrome on top right, and “Warn before quitting”
• Cmd+Shift+N: New Incognito Window.
• Vimium(Chrome Extension): Vim bindings for Chrome.

macOS

• Opt+Shift+(Volume/Brightness keys): Changes volume/brightness in smaller increments
• Opt+(Volume/Brightness keys): Opens System preferences for the respective setting.
• Cmd+Shift+([, ]): Prev/Next tab on apps(works in Chrome, iTerm…)

iTerm

• Ctrl+W: Delete word before cursor
• Tab: Auto complete file and folder name
• Ctrl+Z: Puts whatever you’re doing in a suspended background process. fg restores it.

Thank you to Shane Creighton Young, Arash Rai, Xenia Tay, Kevin Bedi, Justin Sacbibit, Jonathan Ma, Shahmeer Navid, Toby Thomas and Paul Bardea for your contributions.

There are probably more useful shortcuts that I don’t know and would love to learn from you. Hope you learned a new shortcut!