Complete kitty keyboard shortcuts reference — 28 shortcuts across 3 categories. Quick reference cheat sheet for Windows & Mac.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl + Shift + Enter | New window |
| Ctrl + Shift + W | Close window |
| Ctrl + Shift + ] | Next window |
| Ctrl + Shift + [ | Previous window |
| Ctrl + Shift + T | New tab |
| Ctrl + Shift + Q | Close tab |
| Ctrl + Shift + Right | Next tab |
| Ctrl + Shift + Left | Previous tab |
| Ctrl + Shift + L | Next layout |
| Ctrl + Shift + Alt + T | Set tab title |
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl + Shift + C | Copy |
| Ctrl + Shift + V | Paste |
| Ctrl + Shift + Up | Scroll line up |
| Ctrl + Shift + Down | Scroll line down |
| Ctrl + Shift + PageUp | Scroll page up |
| Ctrl + Shift + PageDown | Scroll page down |
| Ctrl + Shift + Home | Scroll to top |
| Ctrl + Shift + End | Scroll to bottom |
| Ctrl + Shift + H | Open scrollback in pager |
| Ctrl + Shift + G | Last command output |
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl + Shift + = | Increase font size |
| Ctrl + Shift + - | Decrease font size |
| Ctrl + Shift + Backspace | Reset font size |
| Ctrl + Shift + F11 | Toggle fullscreen |
| Ctrl + Shift + F2 | Edit kitty.conf |
| Ctrl + Shift + F5 | Reload config |
| Ctrl + Shift + E | URL hints |
| Ctrl + Shift + U | Unicode input |
Kitty's naming trips everyone once: an OS window contains tabs, and each tab contains kitty windows — which are what other terminals call panes or splits. So Ctrl + Shift + Enter opens a new split in the current tab, Ctrl + Shift + ] and Ctrl + Shift + [ cycle between splits, and Ctrl + Shift + L cycles the layout — the arrangement pattern (stacked, tall, grid, and friends) that governs how those splits tile. Tabs ride on Ctrl + Shift + T / Ctrl + Shift + Q with Ctrl + Shift + Left/Right to move between them and Ctrl + Shift + Alt + T to retitle.
Scrollback is where kitty shows off. Ctrl + Shift + H opens the entire history in a pager, so you search and navigate megabytes of output with familiar less keys. Better still, Ctrl + Shift + G opens just the last command's output — the exact thing you usually want — and Ctrl + Shift + E overlays hint labels on visible URLs so you can open one without touching the mouse.
Ctrl + Shift + F2 opens kitty.conf in your editor and Ctrl + Shift + F5 reloads it live — the edit-reload loop for trying fonts, colors, and keybindings without restarting. Font size adjusts on Ctrl + Shift + = / Ctrl + Shift + - with Ctrl + Shift + Backspace resetting, Ctrl + Shift + F11 toggles fullscreen, and Ctrl + Shift + U opens Unicode input for the character you can never remember how to type.
Kitty terminology: a kitty window is a split inside a tab; what you were expecting is an OS window. Ctrl + Shift + Enter deliberately creates the split kind — it is the pane-management workhorse, and the layout system (Ctrl + Shift + L) decides how the splits arrange themselves.
Last-command-output needs kitty's shell integration, which marks where each prompt begins and ends. It is enabled by default on recent installs for common shells; if your setup strips it (custom prompt frameworks sometimes do), re-enable shell_integration in kitty.conf and the key comes alive.
Preset tiling patterns for the splits in a tab — one big pane with a stack beside it, an even grid, everything fullscreen-stacked, and so on. Ctrl + Shift + L cycles through the enabled ones; the enabled_layouts option in kitty.conf controls which patterns participate and in what order.
Scrolling shows history; Ctrl + Shift + H makes it searchable and navigable — the whole buffer opens in your pager, so slash-search, jump-to-top, and copy work exactly as in less. For the common case, Ctrl + Shift + G skips straight to the previous command's output.
Ctrl + Shift + E enters hints mode: every visible URL gets a short letter label, and typing a label opens that link. The same hints machinery can be configured to grab paths, words, or line contents — the URL binding is just the default everyone learns first.
Open your assistant with this page preloaded as the source — great for follow-up questions like "which of these work in other apps?"