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VSCode shortcuts cheat sheet - macOS

VSCode text editing shortcuts cheat sheet

VSCode comes with a gazillion shortcuts. Learning and using them is a true power-up but it's hard to know where to start.

Here's a cheat sheet with some general shortcuts and simple text manipulations.

Nothing code related. No programming language specifics. These are the vanilla defaults that ships with VSCode. I think some are even macOS defaults and not unique to VSCode.

NOTE: Windows users will probably be able to swap command (⌘) for ctrl (^) in most cases, but I don't have access to Windows at the moment so i can't verify that.

Some shortcuts are double, in that you press a first set and then a modifier. Most notably ⌘K works like that, as well as some markdown extensions who uses ^M as their initial key combination.

Double shortcuts are marked with a comma, which means that first you press the combination before the comma and then the second character(s). If a double command uses the command key twice, you can usually just keep holding down the command key while pressing down the first and the second letter in the combination.

General commands and UI

Command Palette ⇧⌘ P
Toggle left sidebar ⌘ B
Toggle bottom panel ⌘ J
Toggle zen mode (full screen no panels) ⌘K, Z
Show search panel ⇧⌘ F
Show file explorer ⇧⌘ E

Document navigation and cursors

A symbol will be the headings in markdown files. So by navigating to symbols, you will be able to jump to a specific header - both in the same document as well as to any header in any file in your workspace.

Go to symbol in Document ⇧⌘ O
Go to symbol in Workspace ⌘ T
Navigate character arrows right or left
Navigate word by word ⌥ + arrows right or left
Navigate to line start ⌘ ←
Navigate to line end ⌘ →
Select character ⇧ + arrows right or left
Select word by word ⇧ ⌥ + arrows right or left
Select to line start ⇧⌘ ←
Select to line end ⇧⌘ →
Toggle folding current block ⌘K, ⌘L
Fold all ⌘K, ⌘0
Unfold all ⌘K, ⌘J
Multiple cursors ⌥ + click
Add cursor above ⌥ ⌘ ↑
Add cursor below ⌥ ⌘ ↓

Text manipulation

Move line up ⌥ ↑
Move line down ⌥ ↓
Duplicate line down ⇧⌥ ↓
Duplicate line up ⇧⌥ ↑
Delete line ⇧⌘K
Insert line above ⇧⌘ Enter
Insert line below ⌘ Enter
Join lines (removes line break at the end of line) ^ J
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