DefaultKeyBinding.dict file for Mac OS X, created by Brett Terpstra and based heavily on work done by Lauri Ranta. Please note that these bindings won’t work in all applications: TextWrangler and TextMate, for example, override these with their own settings.
Copy the DefaultKeyBinding.dict file to the ~/Library/KeyBindings/ directory (create KeyBindings
if it doesn’t already exist). Any open applications will need to be re-started before the key bindings will take
effect — or log out and log back in.
The repository includes a script to generate a Dash docset from your customized version of the file. See here for details.
(last updated 12/22/2023.)
Grouped items begin with the groups shortcut (if exists), followed by a subgroup (if exists) followed by the keys specified.
| General Commands | |
|---|---|
| Key | Function |
| ⌃y | Replace yank: command with yankAndSelect for use with the kill ring (defaults write -g NSTextKillRingSize -int 6) |
| ⌃⌥y | Regular yank, only insert last register and don’t select |
| ⌃⇧u | Uppercase word |
| ⌃⌥u | Lowercase word |
| ⌃⌥t | Titlecase word |
| ⌃⌥⇧u | Uppercase current paragraph |
| ⌃⌥⇧t | Titlecase paragraph |
| ⌃w | Delete word before cursor |
| ⌥w | Select word |
| ⌥⇧w | Select word backward and modify selection |
| ⌥⇧s | Select entire line/paragraph |
| ⌥s | Select from beginning of paragraph to last character |
| ⌃⌥⇧s | Select paragraph excluding leading/trailing whitespace (same as ^$@\UF701) |
| ⌥d | Delete line/paragraph |
| ⌃u | Delete to beginning of paragraph (if this isn’t already defined?) |
| ⌥y | Copy paragraph |
| ⌥x | Cut paragraph |
| ⌥p | Paste paragraph below |
| ⌃⌥p | Yank (from kill ring) paragraph below |
| ⌥⇧p | Paste paragraph above |
| ⌃⌥⇧p | Yank (from kill ring) paragraph above |
| ⌃⇧a | Select to beginning of paragraph and copy |
| ⌃⇧e | Select to end of paragraph and copy |
| ⌥q | Cut to beginning of paragraph |
| ⌥k | Cut to end of paragraph |
| ⌥o | Blank line after current |
| ⌥⇧o | Blank line before current |
| ⌃⌘k | Move line up |
| ⌃⌘j | Move line down |
| ⌃⌘l | Indent line |
| ⌃⌘h | Outdent line (one tab or char) |
| ⌃⌘↑ | Move line up (same commands but with arrow keys) |
| ⌃⌘↓ | Move line down |
| ⌃⌘→ | Indent line |
| ⌃⌘← | Outdent line (one tab or char) |
| ⌃⇧⌘← | Full outdent - Deletes all leading space of line/paragraph (updated) (Control-shift-command-left arrow) |
| ⌃⇧⌘→ | Delete trailing space (Control-shift-command-right arrow) |
| ⌃⌘⇧↑ | Delete leading and trailing whitespace for paragraph (Control-shift-command-up arrow) |
| ⌃⌘⇧↓ | Select paragraph without leading or trailing whitespace (Control-shift-command-down arrow) |
| ⌃⌥⇧↑ | Modify selection up by paragraph (Control Option Shift Up) (Control-option-shift-up arrow) |
| ⌃⌥⇧↓ | Modify selection down by paragraph (Control Option Shift Down) (Control-option-shift-down arrow) |
| ⌃⌥⇧← | Modify selection left by word (Control-option-shift-left arrow) |
| ⌃⌥⇧→ | Modify selection right by word (Control-option-shift-right arrow) |
| ⌘⌥⌃← | Move to first Alphanumeric character of line (Control-option-up arrow Control-option-command-left arrow) |
| ⌘⌥← | Move to first non-whitespace character of line (Control-options-left arrow) |
| ⌘⌥⇧← | Select to first word of paragraph modifying selection (Options-shift-command-left arrow) |
| ⌘⌥⇧→ | Select to end of paragraph modifying selection (Option-shift-command-right arrow) |
| ⌥⌘→ | Move to last non-whitespace character of paragraph (Option-command-right arrow) |
| ⌃⌥→ | Move to end of paragraph and delete trailing whitespace (Control-option-right arrow) |
| ⌘↩ | TextMate Command-Return (Command Return) |
| ⌘⇧↩ | Insert blank line above paragraph (Command Shift Return) |
| ⇧⌥␣ | Insert space and uppercase next character (Shift-Option-Space) |
| ⌃⇧␣ | Uppercase next character (Control-Shift-Space) |
| ⌃⌥␣ | Move cursor forward with spacebar (shift-space) |
| ⌘⌥_ | Hyphenate next space and move to next word (this will kill non alphanumeric symbols and punctuation, use only on words) |
| ⌥1 | Bookmark |
| ⌥2 | Jump to bookmark |
| ⌥⌘↩ | Continue a list item with indentation and include the same delimiter (Command Option Return) |
| ⇧⇥ | Remove one tab (or character) from start of line (outdent) (Shift Tab) |
| ⌘⌥b | Bold selection (Markdown) |
| ⌘⌥i | Italicize selection (Markdown) |
| ⌘⌥` | Backtick selection (Markdown) |
| ⌃⌘↩ | Break line with double space (Markdown) (Control-Command-Return) |
| ⌘⌥= | Increase markdown header level |
| ⌘⌥- | Decrease markdown header level |
| ⌘⌥> | Increase blockquote header level |
| ⌘⌥< | Decrease blockquote level |
| ⌃< | Make selected text into paired HTML tag. Allows attributes, only dupes first word into closing tag (caveat: overwrites your pasteboard) |
| ⌥⇧r | Repeat character before cursor |
| ⌘⇧⌦ | Forward delete to end of paragraph |
| ⌘⇧⌫ | Delete to beginning of paragraph (Command-shift-delete) |
| ⌘⌥7 | Right mouse click (useless, doesn’t maintain cursor position) |
| ⌘⌥⇧s | Real, honest-to-goodnes Save As… |
| Multi–stroke casing commands (⌃⌥c) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ⌃⌥c | c | Snake_case to camelCase (delete forward and capitalize) | |
| ⌃⌥c | s | Snake_case word break | |
| Commenting commands (⌃⌘c) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ⌃⌘c | / | Comment with “//” | |
| ⌃⌘c | Comment with “#” | ||
| ⌃⌘c | ! | HTML commenting | |
| ⌃⌘c | * | Css Commenting | |
| Multi–stroke Markdown commands (⌃⌘w) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ⌃⌘w | ␍ | Force carriage return in text field | |
| ⌃⌘w | ⇥ | Force tab in text field | |
| ⌃⌘w | [ | Insert reference link [selection][[cursor]] |
|
| ⌃⌘w | ] | Insert reference [selection]: [cursor] |
|
| ⌃⌘w | ` | Fence code (new) (Requires text selection) | |
| ⌃⌘w | f | Insert inline footnote marker or inline footnote (new) | |
| ⌃⌘w | + | Unordered list item with + | |
| ⌃⌘w | - | Unordered list item with - | |
| ⌃⌘w | * | Unordered list item with * | |
| ⌃⌘w | . | Numeric list item (new) | |
| ⌃⌘w | 8 | Convert current numbered list item to bullet, handles indentation | |
| ⌃⌘w | 1 | Convert current bullet list item to numbered | |
| Headlines (removes leading whitespace after inserting hashmarks) (h) | |||
| ⌃⌘w | h | 1 | # |
| ⌃⌘w | h | 2 | ## |
| ⌃⌘w | h | 3 | ### |
| ⌃⌘w | h | 4 | #### |
| ⌃⌘w | h | 5 | ##### |
| ⌃⌘w | h | 6 | ###### |
| Markdown link (l) | |||
| ⌃⌘w | l | t | Create a link for selected text, cursor between () [selected text]([cursor]) (links without selected text first, these can produce a mess using multiple clipboards make a text selection before you run them) |
| ⌃⌘w | l | c | Create a link for selected text, inserting clipboard as url [[cursor]selected text](clipboard contents) |
| ⌃⌘w | s | SearchLink Basic Link | |
| Link as image (i) | |||
| ⌃⌘w | i | t | Same as lt, but with image syntax \!\[selected text]([cursor]) |
| ⌃⌘w | i | c | Same as lc, but with image syntax \!\[selected text](clipboard) |
| ⌃⌘w | i | d | Same as lc, but with image syntax and “+” for Droplr links  |
| Reference links (:) | |||
| ⌃⌘w | : | t | Create a reference from selected text |
| ⌃⌘w | : | c | Create a reference from selected text, clipboard as url |
| HTML commands (⌃⌘e) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ⌃⌘e | = | =“[cursor]” | |
| ⌃⌘e | e | Entity &[cursor]; | |
| ⌃⌘e | / | Https:// | |
| ⌃⌘e | t | Make previous word into paired HTML tag | |
| HTML Links (a) | |||
| ⌃⌘e | a | t | Insert HTML link for selected text, leave cursor in the href with “https://” selected |
| ⌃⌘e | a | c | Insert HTML link with clipboard as href |
| HTML Image (i) | |||
| ⌃⌘e | i | t | Insert image tag, any selected text is alt text, leave cursor in src attribute |
| ⌃⌘e | i | c | Insert image tag, clipboard as src, any selected text as alt, leave cursor at beginning of alt attribute |
| Surround commands (⌃⌘s) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ⌃⌘s | ( | Wrap () no spaces | |
| ⌃⌘s | ) | Wrap () with spaces | |
| ⌃⌘s | [ | Wrap [] no spaces | |
| ⌃⌘s | ] | Wrap [] with spaces | |
| ⌃⌘s | { | Wrap {} no spaces | |
| ⌃⌘s | } | Wrap {} with spaces | |
| ⌃⌘s | < | Wrap <> no spaces | |
| ⌃⌘s | > | Wrap <> with spaces | |
| ⌃⌘s | ' | Wrap single quotes | |
| ⌃⌘s | ` | Wrap backticks | |
| Jekyll Shortcuts (⌃⌘j) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ⌃⌘j | p | Pullquote Liquid Tag (new) | |
| ⌃⌘j | r | Raw Liquid Tag (new) | |
| ⌃⌘j | ⇧r | Raw Tag for entire paragraph (new) | |
| TaskPaper Tags (⌃⌘t) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ⌃⌘t | d | @done (new) | |
| ⌃⌘t | p | // @priority() (new) | |
| ⌃⌘t | n | @na (new) | |
| ⌃⌘t | t | @today (new) | |
| SearchLink commands (⌃⌘g) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ⌃⌘g | g | SearchLink Syntax: Google (new) | |
| ⌃⌘g | ⇧a | SearchLink Syntax: Amazon (new) | |
| Apple (a) | |||
| ⌃⌘g | a | i | SearchLink Syntax: iOS App (new) |
| ⌃⌘g | a | m | SearchLink Syntax: Mac App Store (new) |
| ⌃⌘g | s | SearchLink Syntax: Software (new) | |
| ⌃⌘g | m | SearchLink Syntax: IMDB (new) | |
| ⌃⌘g | b | SearchLink Syntax: BrettTerpstra.com (new) | |
| ⌃⌘g | p | SearchLink Syntax: BrettTerpstra.com Projects (new) | |
| ⌃⌘g | t | SearchLink Syntax: Twitter User (new) | |
This documentation is generated automatically from the comments and commands in the DefaultKeyBinding.dict file.
The script document_keybindings.rb is free for use, but it’s specifically designed for use with my formatting
in the bindings plist (i.e. it’s a little finicky).
If you use Dash, you may be interested in the script for Cheatset that can create a custom Dash cheat sheet from your keybindings file, assuming proper comment formatting.
Speaking of KeyBindings…
Brett is a writer and developer living in Minnesota, USA. You can follow him as ttscoff on GitHub, Mastodon, and elsewhere.
Sign up for the email newsletter, and keep up with this blog by adding it to your favorite news reader, or following it on Bluesky or Mastodon at @brettterpstra.com@web.brid.gy.