Complete Ghostty keyboard shortcuts and commands reference — 21 shortcuts across 4 categories. Quick reference cheat sheet for Windows & Mac.
Ghostty is a GPU-accelerated terminal whose default keybinds follow the Ctrl + Shift convention on Linux and Cmd on macOS, so anything you know from GNOME Terminal or iTerm mostly carries over. Where it differs is splits and the CLI actions that let you inspect the configuration from the shell, and both are worth a few minutes.
| Shortcut | Action | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Ctrl + Shift + T | New tab | Open a new tab (Cmd+T on macOS, native platform tabs). |
| Ctrl + Shift + N | New window | Open a new terminal window (Cmd+N on macOS). |
| Ctrl + Shift + W | Close surface | Close the current tab or split (Cmd+W on macOS). |
| Ctrl + Shift + Left / Right | Previous / next tab | Cycle between tabs (Cmd+Shift+[ and Cmd+Shift+] on macOS). |
| Ctrl + Shift + Q | Quit Ghostty | Quit the application (Cmd+Q on macOS). |
| Shortcut | Action | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Ctrl + Shift + O | Split right | Create a new split to the right (Cmd+D on macOS). |
| Ctrl + Shift + E | Split down | Create a new split below (Cmd+Shift+D on macOS). |
| Ctrl + Alt + Arrows | Focus split | Move focus to the split in that direction (Cmd+Alt+Arrows on macOS). |
| Super + Ctrl + Arrows | Resize split | Resize the current split by 10px in that direction. |
| Super + Ctrl + = | Equalize splits | Make all splits in the window equal size. |
| Cmd + Shift + Enter | Zoom split | Temporarily maximize the focused split, press again to restore (macOS). |
| Shortcut | Action | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Ctrl + Shift + C | Copy | Copy the selection to clipboard (Cmd+C on macOS). |
| Ctrl + Shift + V | Paste | Paste from clipboard (Cmd+V on macOS). |
| Ctrl + Shift + A | Select all | Select the entire visible terminal content. |
| Ctrl + Shift + J | Dump scrollback | Write the scrollback buffer to a file - the standard workaround for missing built-in search. |
| Ctrl + Shift + PgDn | Jump to prompt | Jump between shell prompts in scrollback (Cmd+Up/Down on macOS, needs shell integration). |
| Ctrl + Shift + , | Reload config | Reload the configuration file at runtime (Cmd+Shift+, on macOS). |
| Shortcut | Action | Description |
|---|---|---|
| ghostty +list-keybinds --default | List default keybinds | Print every default keybinding - the authoritative list for your version. |
| ghostty +list-themes | Preview themes | Open an interactive TUI preview of all built-in themes. |
| ghostty +list-actions | List actions | List every action you can bind in the config file. |
| ghostty +show-config | Show config | Print the fully resolved current configuration. |
Ctrl + Shift + T opens a tab and Ctrl + Shift + N a window; Ctrl + Shift + W closes the current surface, which is Ghostty's word for whichever tab, split or window has focus — one binding for all three. Ctrl + Shift + Left / Right moves between tabs, and Ctrl + Shift + Q quits the whole application, confirming first if anything is running.
Ctrl + Shift + O splits to the right and Ctrl + Shift + E splits downward. Ctrl + Alt + Arrows moves focus between splits by direction, Super + Ctrl + Arrows resizes the focused split, and Super + Ctrl + = equalises all of them after a few resizes have left the layout lopsided. Cmd + Shift + Enter — the macOS default — zooms one split to fill the window and back, the same idea as tmux zoom but at the terminal level.
Ctrl + Shift + J dumps the scrollback buffer to a file, which beats copying when you need to attach a long build log to a ticket. Ctrl + Shift + PgDn jumps between shell prompts when shell integration is enabled, so a wall of output can be skipped a command at a time. After editing the config file, Ctrl + Shift + , reloads it without restarting. From a shell, ghostty +list-keybinds --default prints every default binding for your platform — the authoritative version of this table — and ghostty +show-config shows the effective configuration with defaults filled in; ghostty +list-themes previews the bundled colour themes interactively.
Run ghostty +list-keybinds --default. The output is platform-specific and reflects the installed version.
Ghostty's term for any terminal area — a tab, a split pane or a window. Ctrl + Shift + W closes whichever has focus.
Jump-to-prompt needs shell integration, which Ghostty injects automatically for bash, zsh and fish in most setups. Check shell-integration in ghostty +show-config.
No. Ctrl + Shift + , reloads the configuration in place.
Open your assistant with this page preloaded as the source — great for follow-up questions like "which of these work in other apps?"