Useful Keyboard Shortcut in Linux

Feb 21, 2022 2 min read

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If we want to work faster we need to know keyboard shortcuts. Always using mouse sometime boring. Even though, I don’t know all keyboard shortcuts. I am going to keep the common used keyboard shortcut!

Shortcut in Debian Linux

These shortcut works on Debina based Linux and Gnome

Super+Shift+Left/Right Move window to left/right monitor
Ctrl+Alt+Tab Switch System Controls
Super+Tab Switch Applications
Alt+Esc Switch Window Directly

System

Super+L Lock Screen
Super+A Show All Notifications
Alt+F2 Run Command Prompt
Supper or Super+s Overview
Logout Ctrl+Alt+Delete

Window

Alt+F7 Move Window
Alt+F8 Resize Window
Alt+Up/Down Restore Window
Super+Left/Right Split on Left/Right
Alt+F4 Close Window
Super+h Hide Window

Application Shortcut

If the applications are gnome based, same shortcut should work on different distros

Vmware Workstation

Ctrl+Alt+Enter Enter Full Screen
Alt then Alt+Enter Exit Full Screen
Ctrl+Alt+Left/Right Switch To next vm in Full Screen Mode

Gnome Terminal

Shift+Ctrl+T New Tab
Shift+Ctrl+W Close Tab
Shift+Ctrl+C Copy
Shift+Ctrl+V Paste
F11 Full Screen
Ctrl+ +/- Zoom in/out
Shift+Ctrl+F/G/H Find and Find next/previous
Ctrl+Left/Right/1..2 Switch Tabs
Shift+Ctrl+Up/Down Scroll up down
Shift+Home/End Scroll to Top/End
Ctrl+U/K Delete a Line while cursor at the end/start
Ctrl+Y Paste from clipboard
Ctrl+R/P Reverse Incremental/Non-Incremental Search

Nautilus

Ctrl+h Show/Hide Hidden Files
Ctrl+R Refresh
F9 Toggle Side Pane
Alt+Left Go Back
Alt+Right Forward
Alt+Home Go Home
Ctrl++/- Zome in/Zoom Out
Ctrl+0 Reset Zoom
Ctrl+L Go to location bar
Ctrl+Shift+N Create New Folder
F2 Rename File
Alt+Enter File Properties
Shift+Ctrl+Mouse drag Create symbolic link

Google Chrome

Ctrl+N Open new window
Ctrl+Shift+N New Incognito Window
Ctrl+T Open New Tab
Ctrl+Tab/Right/Left Navigate to tabs
Ctrl+1..8 Navigate tabs by tab numbers
Ctrl+9 Go to last tab
Ctrl+F4 Close Current Tab
Alt+F4 Close Current Window
Alt+F Chrome Menu
F12 Developer Tools
Ctrl+Shift+O Bookmarks Manager
Ctrl+L or F6 Focus on Location Bar
Ctrl+S Save Current Page
Ctrl+Shift+R Reload without cache
Tab Navigate to clickable Items
Shift+Tab Navigate from the End to Clickable items
Ctrl+U View Source Code
Ctrl+D Bookmark
Ctrl+ +/-/0 Zoom in, Zoom out and default size
Ctrl+Backspace Delete Last word

Gedit

Ctrl+O Open File
Ctrl+N New File
Ctrl+S Save File
Ctrl+L Go to Line Number
Ctrl+Alt+Right/Left Next Tab
Ctrl+W Close current Tab
Ctrl+F Find
Ctrl+H Find and Replace
Ctrl+Q Quit Gedit

Nano

Ctrl+S Save File
Ctrl+O Save as
Ctrl+K Delete Current Line
Ctrl+X Exit from nano (Yes/No for save)
Alt+6 Copy Current Line
Ctrl+U Paste Copied Line
Ctrl+Q Backward Search
Ctrl+W Forward Search
Alt+Q Find next occurrence Backward
Alt+W Find next occurrence Forward
Ctrl+T Run command and paste output

Hope this keyboard shortcut is helpful for someone, at least for me :)!

Jobyer Ahmed
Written by
Jobyer Ahmed
Founder and Cybersecurity Professional
Jobyer Ahmed is the founder and cybersecurity professional at Bytium LLC. He works across offensive and defensive security, including penetration testing, red-team operations, and vulnerability management, with a focus on practical and audit-ready security improvements.