Keyboard shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts may vary by platform and terminal. Press ? to see available shortcuts for your environment.
General controls
| Shortcut | Description | Context |
|---|
Ctrl+C | Cancel current input or generation | Standard interrupt |
Ctrl+D | Exit Claude Code session | EOF signal |
Ctrl+L | Clear terminal screen | Keeps conversation history |
Ctrl+O | Toggle verbose output | Shows detailed tool usage and execution |
Ctrl+R | Reverse search command history | Search through previous commands interactively |
Ctrl+V (macOS/Linux) or Alt+V (Windows) | Paste image from clipboard | Pastes an image or path to an image file |
Up/Down arrows | Navigate command history | Recall previous inputs |
Esc + Esc | Rewind the code/conversation | Restore the code and/or conversation to a previous point |
Tab | Toggle extended thinking | Switch between Thinking on and Thinking off |
Shift+Tab or Alt+M (some configurations) | Toggle permission modes | Switch between Auto-Accept Mode, Plan Mode, and normal mode |
| Method | Shortcut | Context |
|---|
| Quick escape | \ + Enter | Works in all terminals |
| macOS default | Option+Enter | Default on macOS |
| Terminal setup | Shift+Enter | After /terminal-setup |
| Control sequence | Ctrl+J | Line feed character for multiline |
| Paste mode | Paste directly | For code blocks, logs |
Configure your preferred line break behavior in terminal settings. Run /terminal-setup to install Shift+Enter binding for iTerm2 and VS Code terminals.
Quick commands
| Shortcut | Description | Notes |
|---|
# at start | Memory shortcut - add to CLAUDE.md | Prompts for file selection |
/ at start | Slash command | See slash commands |
! at start | Bash mode | Run commands directly and add execution output to the session |
@ | File path mention | Trigger file path autocomplete |
Vim editor mode
Enable vim-style editing with /vim command or configure permanently via /config.
Mode switching
| Command | Action | From mode |
|---|
Esc | Enter NORMAL mode | INSERT |
i | Insert before cursor | NORMAL |
I | Insert at beginning of line | NORMAL |
a | Insert after cursor | NORMAL |
A | Insert at end of line | NORMAL |
o | Open line below | NORMAL |
O | Open line above | NORMAL |
Navigation (NORMAL mode)
| Command | Action |
|---|
h/j/k/l | Move left/down/up/right |
w | Next word |
e | End of word |
b | Previous word |
0 | Beginning of line |
$ | End of line |
^ | First non-blank character |
gg | Beginning of input |
G | End of input |
Editing (NORMAL mode)
| Command | Action |
|---|
x | Delete character |
dd | Delete line |
D | Delete to end of line |
dw/de/db | Delete word/to end/back |
cc | Change line |
C | Change to end of line |
cw/ce/cb | Change word/to end/back |
. | Repeat last change |
Command history
Claude Code maintains command history for the current session:
- History is stored per working directory
- Cleared with
/clear command
- Use Up/Down arrows to navigate (see keyboard shortcuts above)
- Note: History expansion (
!) is disabled by default
Reverse search with Ctrl+R
Press Ctrl+R to interactively search through your command history:
- Start search: Press
Ctrl+R to activate reverse history search
- Type query: Enter text to search for in previous commands - the search term will be highlighted in matching results
- Navigate matches: Press
Ctrl+R again to cycle through older matches
- Accept match:
- Press
Tab or Esc to accept the current match and continue editing
- Press
Enter to accept and execute the command immediately
- Cancel search:
- Press
Ctrl+C to cancel and restore your original input
- Press
Backspace on empty search to cancel
The search displays matching commands with the search term highlighted, making it easy to find and reuse previous inputs.
Background bash commands
Claude Code supports running bash commands in the background, allowing you to continue working while long-running processes execute.
How backgrounding works
When Claude Code runs a command in the background, it runs the command asynchronously and immediately returns a background task ID. Claude Code can respond to new prompts while the command continues executing in the background.
To run commands in the background, you can either:
- Prompt Claude Code to run a command in the background
- Press Ctrl+B to move a regular Bash tool invocation to the background. (Tmux users must press Ctrl+B twice due to tmux’s prefix key.)
Key features:
- Output is buffered and Claude can retrieve it using the BashOutput tool
- Background tasks have unique IDs for tracking and output retrieval
- Background tasks are automatically cleaned up when Claude Code exits
Common backgrounded commands:
- Build tools (webpack, vite, make)
- Package managers (npm, yarn, pnpm)
- Test runners (jest, pytest)
- Development servers
- Long-running processes (docker, terraform)
Bash mode with ! prefix
Run bash commands directly without going through Claude by prefixing your input with !:
! npm test
! git status
! ls -la
- Adds the command and its output to the conversation context
- Shows real-time progress and output
- Supports the same
Ctrl+B backgrounding for long-running commands
- Does not require Claude to interpret or approve the command
This is useful for quick shell operations while maintaining conversation context.
See also
