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 Twitter, GitHub, Mastodon, and elsewhere.
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