Complete Alacritty keyboard shortcuts reference — 19 shortcuts across 2 categories. Quick reference cheat sheet for Windows & Mac.
Alacritty is a GPU-rendered terminal with no tabs or splits by design — it expects tmux for that — so its shortcuts are about text: copy, paste, search the scrollback, resize the font, and a vi mode for selecting without a mouse. The table is the Linux/Windows keymap; on macOS the copy and paste keys are Cmd + C and Cmd + V.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl + Shift + C | Copy |
| Ctrl + Shift + V | Paste |
| Ctrl + Shift + F | Search forward |
| Ctrl + Shift + B | Search backward |
| Ctrl + Shift + N | New window |
| Ctrl + = | Increase font size |
| Ctrl + - | Decrease font size |
| Ctrl + 0 | Reset font size |
| F11 | Toggle fullscreen |
| Shift + PageUp | Scroll page up |
| Shift + PageDown | Scroll page down |
| Shift + Home | Scroll to top |
| Shift + End | Scroll to bottom |
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl + Shift + Space | Toggle Vi mode |
| V | Start selection |
| Y | Copy selection |
| G | Scrollback top/bottom |
| I | Leave Vi mode |
| Esc | Clear selection |
The most essential Alacritty shortcuts are: Ctrl + Shift + C (Copy), Ctrl + Shift + V (Paste), Ctrl + Shift + F (Search forward).
The Alacritty shortcut for copy is Ctrl + Shift + C.
Print the Alacritty cheat sheet and keep it next to your keyboard for the first week, then switch to active recall: open Shortcut Speedrun and practice Alacritty shortcuts against the clock until they're automatic.
Yes — use My Stack to combine Alacritty shortcuts with any other platform on this site into one printable reference, which is useful if your daily workflow spans several tools.
Most do not — the underlying key is the same, but Alacritty (like most software) maps Ctrl on Windows/Linux to Cmd on Mac for standard operations. Where a shortcut is platform-specific, this page notes the Mac variant next to the Windows one.
Ctrl + Shift + C copies the selection and Ctrl + Shift + V pastes — Shift because plain Ctrl + C is the interrupt signal in a terminal. Ctrl + Shift + F searches backward through the scrollback from the bottom (the direction that finds recent output first, despite the name) and Ctrl + Shift + B searches the other way; Enter accepts and Esc cancels. Regex is supported, and matches are highlighted as you type.
Ctrl + Shift + N opens a new window sharing the same process, which starts faster than a second Alacritty. Ctrl + = and Ctrl + - change the font size and Ctrl + 0 resets it; F11 toggles fullscreen. Shift + PageUp and Shift + PageDown scroll the history a page at a time, and Shift + Home and Shift + End jump to the top and bottom. Scrollback depth is set in the config file.
Ctrl + Shift + Space enters vi mode, where the cursor moves through the screen and scrollback with vi keys. V starts a selection, Y copies it and exits, G jumps to the top or bottom of the scrollback (with the usual gg/G distinction), Esc clears the selection and I leaves vi mode. Combined with search, this is how output is copied without a mouse. All bindings are changeable in alacritty.toml under [keyboard] bindings.
Open your assistant with this page preloaded as the source — great for follow-up questions like "which of these work in other apps?"