OS X Terminal keyboard shortcuts

terminal_shortcuts.txt

CTRL+a
Move cursor to beginning of the line. (I think of this as anchoring my cursor to the start.)

CTRL+e
Move cursor to the end of the line.

CTRL+k
Delete everything from under the cursor to the end of the line. (I think of this as killing the rest of my line.)

CTRL+f
Move forward one character. Identical to →.

CTRL+b
Move backward one character. Identical to ←.

ESC+f
Move forward one word.

ESC+b
Move backward one word.

CTRL+u
Delete everything from under the cursor the beginning of the line.

CTRL+w
Delete from under the cursor to the beginning of the word.

CTRL+r
Recall previous commands by searching for them.

CTRL+t
Transpose (swap) the two characters before the cursor with one another.

ESC+t
Transpose (swap) the two words before the cursor with one another.

CTRL+y
Paste the most previously-deleted string. Basically a sort of command-line editting “undo.”

CTRL+z
Stop the current process and send it to the background.

CTRL+c
Send an SIG_HUP to the current process. The net effect of doing this on the command line is that you cancel your current command and are presented with a blank new line.

CTRL+d
Send an end-of-file special character to the current process. Doing this at the command line is identical to closing your terminal window.

CTRL+p
Recall previous command executed. Identical to ↑.

CTRL+d
Forward delete.

CTRL+h
Backspace.

CTRL+j
Carriage return. Identical to hitting the return key.

CTRL+m
Newline. Identical to return.

CTRL+l
Repaint screen. This is useful if a program’s output is overwriting some text on your terminal. The effect of doing this on a command line is that you clear the screen. Note than in Apple’s Terminal.app, you can also press +K to clear the screen.

CTRL-x + CTRL-x
Mark current location in line and jump to beginning of line or second mark if defined. Repeat to jump to between both marks.

CTRL+v
Insert next character verbatim. This is how you escape control sequences. For instance, to literally send a

CTRL+[
Identical to ESC.

ESC+c
Capitolize word under cursor and move to next word.

ESC+u
Uppercase word under cursor and move to next word.

ESC+l
Lowercase word under cursor and move to next word.

ESC+.
Insert last word from previous command after cursor.

TAB
Auto-completes file, folder, and program names.

ESC-?
List the possible completions

CTRL-x /
List the possible filename completions

ESC-/
Attempt filename completion

CTRL-x ~
List the possible variable completions

ESC- ~
Attempt username completion

CTRL-x $
List the possible variable completions

ESC-$
Attempt variable completion

CTRL-x @
List the possible hostname completion

ESC-@
Attempt hostname completion

CTRL-x !
List the possible command completions

ESC-!
Attempt command completion

ESC-TAB
Attempt completion from previous commands in the history list