Complete guide to Perplexity AI — keyboard shortcuts, Focus modes, search operators, and power-user prompt tips.
Quick answer: Perplexity shortcuts — New search: Ctrl+K | Submit: Enter | New thread: Ctrl+Enter | Focus search: /
| Shortcut | Action | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Ctrl + K | New search | Start a new Perplexity search from anywhere. |
| Enter | Submit query | Send your search query. |
| Ctrl + Enter | New thread | Start a fresh conversation thread. |
| / | Focus search | Move cursor to the search input. |
| Shortcut | Action | Description |
|---|---|---|
| site:example.com query | Site search | Search within a specific website. |
| "exact phrase" | Exact match | Search for an exact phrase in quotes. |
| query filetype:pdf | File type filter | Find PDF documents about a topic. |
| query after:2024 | Date filter | Restrict results to after a specific year. |
| -exclude term | Exclude term | Remove a word from search results. |
Perplexity keeps chrome minimal: Ctrl + K for the search/command palette, Enter to search, Ctrl + Enter for a new line while composing, and / to focus the input. That's genuinely most of it — which is why the interesting half of this page is the operators you type into the query itself.
Because Perplexity retrieves before it answers, classic search operators shape what the model reads. site:example.com confines retrieval to one domain — the single most useful trick, turning Perplexity into a Q&A layer over any documentation site. Quoted “exact phrases” force literal matching, filetype:pdf pulls papers and reports, after:2024 cuts stale results, and a leading - excludes a term that keeps polluting answers. They combine: site:docs.python.org “asyncio” after:2024.
Older guides mention pressing a “Focus” to switch modes like Academic or YouTube — that UI was redesigned; source selection now lives in the search bar's source toggles, and the old mode names were never keyboard shortcuts in the first place (an earlier version of this page listed them; they've been removed). If you want Academic-style behavior today, toggle academic sources on and lean on filetype:pdf and site: with journal domains.
Opens the search/command palette — the fastest way to start a new query from anywhere in the app.
Yes — the typed operator site:example.com restricts retrieval to that domain, effectively making Perplexity a natural-language interface for one site's content.
Ctrl+Enter inserts a new line while composing; plain Enter submits the query.
The core set does: quoted exact phrases, site:, filetype:, after:, and - exclusion. They shape which sources the answer is built from.
The Focus picker (Web/Academic/YouTube/Reddit/Writing/Math) was replaced by source toggles in the search bar. The old names were UI modes, not shortcuts — which is why they no longer appear in this table.
Open your assistant with this page preloaded as the source — great for follow-up questions like "which of these work in other apps?"