(Emacs) Keyboard Shortcuts for Editing Text Fields in OS X

July 17, 2015

As is widely known, OS X has a collection of keyboard shortcuts involving the arrow keys for editing most text fields including web forms, input boxes, plain text documents, and so on. For example, ⌘← moves the cursor to the beginning of the current line.

Although they are hidden in plain sight, it seems less widely known that OS X also natively supports certain Emacs keyboard shortcuts in those same text areas. For example, to move to the beginning or end of the current line you can press ⌃A or ⌃E. To delete everything on the current line after the cursor use ⌃K. To transpose the characters on the left and right of the cursor, press ⌃T. To recenter the viewport on the current line, press ⌃L. Shortcuts like these can be faster than using ones involving the arrow keys, which requires moving ones fingers away from the home row of the keyboard.

The table below compares the Emacs keybindings with the OS X ones (the Emacs-like ones and more standard ones). For OS X shortcuts we use the usual symbols for the Command ⌘, Shift ⇧, Option ⌥, Control ⌃, Caps Lock ⇪, Delete ⌫, and Function Fn keys and write all letter keys in uppercase. Emacs keybindings are expressed in the usual notation for Control C, Meta (Alt) M, Shift S prefixes and the Delete DEL key and we write the letter keys in lowercase.

Emacs and OS X Keyboard Shortcuts Compared
Entity	Direction	Emacs	OS X
Moving the cursor: move the cursor by character, word, line, etc.
char	left	`C-b`	`⌃B`	`←`
	right	`C-f`	`⌃F`	`→`
word	left	`M-b`	`⌃⌥B`	`⌥←`
	right	`M-f`	`⌃⌥F`	`⌥→`
line	begin	`C-a`	`⌃A`	`⌘←`
	end	`C-e`	`⌃E`	`⌘→`
	up	`C-p`	`⌃P`	`↑`
	down	`C-n`	`⌃N`	`↓`
doc	begin	`M-<`		`⌘↑`
	end	`M->`		`⌘↓`
Selecting text: extend the selection1 by character, word, paragraph, and line
char	left	`C-b`	`⌃⇧B`	`⇧←`
	right	`C-f`	`⌃⇧F`	`⇧→`
word	left	`M-b`	`⌃⌥⇧B`	`⌥⇧←`
	right	`M-f`	`⌃⌥⇧F`	`⌥⇧→`
line	begin	`C-a`	`⌃⇧A`	`⇧⌘←`
	end	`C-e`	`⌃⇧E`	`⇧⌘→`
	up	`C-p`	`⌃⇧P`	`⇧↑`
	down	`C-n`	`⌃⇧N`	`⇧↓`
Deleting text: remove characters, words, and lines
char	left	`C-h`, `DEL`	`⌃H`	`⌫`
	right	`C-d`	`⌃D`
word	left	`M-DEL`		`⌥⌫`
	right	`M-d`		`Fn`+`⌥⌫`
line	backwards	`C–0 C-k`		`⌘⌫`
	forwards	`C-k`	`⌃K`
Search: find text and move between search results
result	first	`C-s`		`⌘F`
	next	`C-s`		`⌘G`
	previous	`C-r`		`⇧⌘G`
Scrolling: move and recenter the viewport
page	up	`M-v`		`Fn`+`↑`
	down	`C-v`	`⌃V`	`Fn`+`↓`
	recenter	`C-l`	`⌃L`
Miscellaneous: other insertion, editing, and kill ring2 commands
char	transpose	`C-t`	`⌃T`
line	insert	`C-o`	`⌃O`
	kill	`C-w`	`⌃K`
	yank	`C-y`	`⌃Y`