Skip to content

Linux Hotkeys

🕹️ Cursor Movement

  • Ctrl + A — Move cursor to the beginning of the line.

  • Ctrl + E — Move cursor to the end of the line.

  • Alt + F — Move cursor forward one word.

  • Alt + B — Move cursor backward one word.

  • Ctrl + F — Move cursor forward one character.

  • Ctrl + B — Move cursor backward one character.

  • Ctrl + XX — Toggle between the start of the line and current cursor position.

✂️ Text Editing

  • Ctrl + U — Cut/Delete from cursor to the beginning of the line.

  • Ctrl + K — Cut/Delete from cursor to the end of the line.

  • Ctrl + W — Cut/Delete the word before the cursor.

  • Alt + D — Cut/Delete the word after the cursor.

  • Ctrl + D — Delete the character under the cursor (or exit shell if line is empty).

  • Ctrl + H — Delete the character before the cursor (same as Backspace).

  • Ctrl + Y — Yank (Paste) the last deleted text.

  • Alt + T — Swap the current word with the previous one.

  • Ctrl + T — Swap the last two characters before the cursor.

  • Alt + U — Capitalize from cursor to the end of the word (UPPERCASE).

  • Alt + L — Lowercase from cursor to the end of the word (lowercase).

  • Alt + C — Capitalize the first letter of the current word.

  • Ctrl + _ — Undo the last editing command.

📜 Command History

  • Ctrl + R — Reverse Search through command history.

  • Ctrl + G — Exit history search mode.

  • Ctrl + P — Previous command in history (same as ↑).

  • Ctrl + N — Next command in history (same as ↓).

  • Alt + . — Insert the last argument of the previous command.

  • !! — Execute the very last command again.

  • !n — Execute command number n from history.

  • !-n — Execute the command that was n steps ago.

  • !string — Execute the last command starting with string.

⚙️ Process Control

  • Ctrl + C — Interrupt/Kill the current foreground process (SIGINT).

  • Ctrl + Z — Suspend/Pause the process and send it to background (SIGTSTP). Type fg to resume.

  • Ctrl + D — Send End-of-File (EOF). Closes the current terminal session.

  • Ctrl + S — Freeze terminal output (Stop scroll).

  • Ctrl + Q — Unfreeze terminal output (Resume scroll).

  • Ctrl + \ — Quit the process with a core dump (SIGQUIT).

🖥️ System & UI

  • Ctrl + L — Clear the screen (same as clear command).

  • Tab — Auto-complete command, file, or path.

  • Tab + Tab — List all possible completions.

  • Alt + ? — Show all possible completions.

  • Alt + * — Insert all possible completions directly into the line.