Essential Terminal Keyboard Shortcuts

Reaching for the mouse — or worse, holding down backspace to fix a typo — is one of the biggest hidden time-sinks for terminal users. These shortcuts work in Bash and Zsh (the default shells on most Linux distros and macOS) and cover the moves you’ll use dozens of times a day.

Note

Most of these come from readline, the line-editing library that powers Bash, and zle, Zsh’s equivalent. If your shell is configured for vi keybindings instead of the default emacs style, some of these will differ — see the note at the end.

Moving around the line

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl + A	Jump to the start of the line
Ctrl + E	Jump to the end of the line
Alt + F	Move forward one word
Alt + B	Move back one word
Ctrl + XX	Toggle between the current cursor position and the start of the line

Editing

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl + U	Delete from the cursor to the start of the line
Ctrl + K	Delete from the cursor to the end of the line
Ctrl + W	Delete the word before the cursor
Alt + D	Delete the word after the cursor
Ctrl + Y	Paste back the last thing you deleted with U/K/W
Ctrl + _	Undo the last edit

History

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl + R	Search command history interactively (type to filter, Ctrl + R again for older matches)
Ctrl + G	Cancel a history search and restore the original line
!!	Re-run the previous command
!$	Insert the last argument of the previous command
Alt + .	Insert the last argument of the previous command, cyclable by pressing again

Process & job control

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl + C	Send SIGINT — stop the current foreground process
Ctrl + Z	Suspend the current process and return to the shell (resume later with fg)
Ctrl + D	Send EOF — closes the shell/input if the line is empty
Ctrl + L	Clear the screen (like running clear, but doesn’t wipe scrollback)

Screen & pane management (tmux)

If you use tmux (and if you don’t yet, it’s worth trying), these are the defaults with the standard Ctrl + B prefix:

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl + B then c	Create a new window
Ctrl + B then %	Split the current pane vertically
Ctrl + B then "	Split the current pane horizontally
Ctrl + B then arrow key	Move between panes
Ctrl + B then d	Detach from the session (reattach later with tmux attach)

Using vi-style keybindings instead

If you run set -o vi in Bash (or have bindkey -v in Zsh), your line editing switches to vi-style modal editing — Esc drops you into a command mode where h/j/k/l, 0/$, dw, and . behave much like they do in the vi/vim editor. History search still works with Ctrl + R in insert mode, or / and ? once you’re in command mode.

Make them stick

The fastest way to actually remember these is to pick two or three you don’t already use, and force yourself to use them exclusively for a week instead of arrow keys or backspace. Ctrl + R for history search and Ctrl + A / Ctrl + E for line jumps are the highest-value place to start.

Further reading

• GNU Readline manual — the full reference for Bash’s line editing.
• Customize Your Shell Prompt with Starship — pair these shortcuts with a prompt that shows you more context at a glance.