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Mac Keyboard Shortcuts Every Dev Should Know

Tori Crawford on October 30, 2019

Something that has always interested me is the impact that small actions have on our daily lives and I think knowing keyboard shortcuts is one of t...
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That Blair Guy •

Congratulations on discovering keyboard shortcuts, they are a superpower.

Three bonus items for you:

  • Command + C - Copy (depending on the program and whether anything is highlighted, this will copy the highlighted text, the current line, or even an image. Use this in the Finder to copy files.
  • Command + X - Cut. Similar to Copy, except that it removes the item from the source location.
  • Command + V - Paste. Places the copied/cut item at the current point of focus.
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Tori Crawford •

How did I manage to forget the ones I use THE MOST 🤦🏼‍♀️ 😂

Thank you for adding them!

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David Wickes • • Edited

Fantastic list - I didn't know a lot of these.

Something I accidentally discovered is that most of the Emacs-style shortcuts will also work on OSX - you may need an alternative keyboard to access the Meta (aka Alt) key, but here are some basics using Control:

  • Control-e: end of the line
  • Control-a: beginning of the line
  • Control-k: 'kill' (cut) everything from the cursor up to the end of the line
  • Control-y: 'yank' (paste) what you just killed
  • Control-h: delete a character backwards
  • Control-d: delete a character forwards
  • Control-n: next line
  • Control-p: previous line
  • Control-f: forward one character
  • Control-b: backwards one character

There are many more. To make the most of these swap your CapsLock key with Control (can be done in the Settings -> Keyboard -> Modifier keys...).

Have fun.

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Renzo Mayer •

Well done and thank you!
I think is a nice iteration on shortcuts, for te next one, if there is one, I would love to hear about gestures for the trackpad, switch desktops, etc focused on web operarions workflow!

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Jared •

If you reeaaaally like keyboard shortcuts, you should check out Vim.

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Darko Mens •

Good to share

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Dinesh Pandiyan •

Thanks Victoria. This is very helpful.

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Anna Simoroshka •

my favorites are cmd + f, and in code editor: cmd + shift + f (search whole project) and cmd + p (search file by name).

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Tori Crawford •

I had no idea about command + shift + F or command + P before! Thank you for sharing.

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pris stratton •

Wow there are loads I didn’t know. Thank you 😁

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Shawn •

Here are some flashcards to learn all the mac keyboard shortcuts

knowledgize.com/en/d/mac-keyboard-...