Ubuntu Keyboard Shortcuts Cheat Sheet (GNOME, Printable PDF)

Ubuntu keyboard shortcuts let you run the whole GNOME desktop without reaching for the mouse. You can tile two windows side by side, hop between workspaces, grab a screenshot or open a terminal with one chord. The catch is that Ubuntu is not plain GNOME. Its Tiling Assistant and dock own several keys that GNOME’s own help page describes differently, so a generic GNOME list will point you at the wrong key more than once.

Original content from computingforgeeks.com - post 185069

This cheat sheet covers the desktop, window tiling, workspaces, screenshots, the Ptyxis terminal and the Files app, then shows you how to add custom shortcuts in Settings and with gsettings, and how to back them up. I pressed the desktop, tiling, workspace, screenshot-tool and custom-shortcut keys on a fresh Ubuntu 26.04.1 LTS desktop running GNOME 50 in November 2026, and read the rest from gsettings and each app’s own shortcut list, so the tables match what a stock install gives you.

Ubuntu Keyboard Shortcuts Cheat Sheet (Quick Reference)

Super is the Windows key on most keyboards (Command on a Mac keyboard). Every key in these tables is a default on Ubuntu 26.04 with the Ubuntu session, which is what you get after a normal install. The sections further down explain the ones that behave differently from plain GNOME and show them on screen.

Desktop and overview

Shortcut	What it does
Super	Activities overview and search
Super + A	App grid
Super + S	Quick Settings menu
Super + V	Notification list and calendar (Super + M also works)
Super + N	Focus the active notification
Super + Q	Show dock numbers for Super + 1 to 0
Super + 1 ... 0	Open or focus dock app 1 to 10
Super + Ctrl + 1 ... 9	New window of dock app 1 to 9
Ctrl + Alt + T	Open a terminal (Ptyxis)
Alt + F2	Run a command
Super + L	Lock the screen
Super + Space	Next keyboard layout
Super + P	Switch display layout
Ctrl + Alt + Delete	Log out dialog

Windows and tiling

Shortcut	What it does
Super + Left / Right	Tile to the left or right half
Super + Up	Maximize
Super + Down	Restore a tiled or maximized window
Super + Numpad 7 / 9 / 1 / 3	Tile to a quarter of the screen
Super + D	Show the desktop (Ctrl + Super + D too)
Super + H	Minimize
Alt + Tab	Switch windows
Super + Tab	Switch apps
Alt + `	Switch windows of the same app
Alt + F4	Close the window
Alt + F10	Toggle maximize
Alt + F7 / Alt + F8	Move / resize with the arrow keys
Alt + Space	Window menu
Super + Shift + Left / Right	Move the window to the other monitor

Workspaces

Shortcut	What it does
Super + Page Up / Page Down	Previous / next workspace
Ctrl + Alt + Left / Right	Previous / next workspace
Super + Shift + Page Up / Page Down	Move the window one workspace over
Super + Home / End	First / last workspace
Super + Shift + Home / End	Move the window to the first / last workspace

Screenshots and screen recording

Shortcut	What it does
Print	Open the screenshot tool
Shift + Print	Capture the whole screen at once
Alt + Print	Capture the active window at once
Ctrl + Shift + Alt + R	Open the screen recorder
S / C / W	In the tool: Selection / Screen / Window
V	In the tool: switch photo and video
Enter	In the tool: take the shot

Ptyxis terminal

Shortcut	What it does
Ctrl + Shift + C / V	Copy / paste
Ctrl + Shift + T	New tab
Ctrl + Shift + N	New window
Ctrl + Shift + W	Close tab
Ctrl + Shift + Alt + T	Reopen the last closed tab
Ctrl + Shift + O	Tab overview
Ctrl + Page Up / Page Down	Previous / next tab
Alt + 1 ... 9	Jump to tab 1 to 9
Ctrl + Shift + F	Search the scrollback
Ctrl + + / - / 0	Zoom in / out / reset
F11	Full screen
Ctrl + ,	Preferences

Files (Nautilus)

Shortcut	What it does
Ctrl + H	Show or hide hidden files
Ctrl + L	Type a path
Ctrl + .	Open the folder in a terminal
Ctrl + Shift + N	New folder
F2	Rename
Ctrl + I	Properties
Ctrl + F	Search this folder
Ctrl + 1 / Ctrl + 2	List view / grid view
Ctrl + T	New tab
Alt + Left / Right / Up	Back / forward / parent folder
Shift + Delete	Delete without the Trash
Ctrl + ?	All Files shortcuts

Custom shortcuts from the terminal

Command	What it does
gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings show-desktop	Read one binding
gsettings list-recursively | grep -i "'<super>1'"	Find what owns a key
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings minimize "['<Super>h']"	Set a binding (here the default for minimize)
gsettings reset org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings minimize	Put one key back to default
dconf dump /org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/ > custom-shortcuts.ini	Back up custom shortcuts
dconf load /org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/ < custom-shortcuts.ini	Restore them

If you only learn three from these tables, make them Super, Super + Left / Right and Ctrl + Alt + T. Super plus typing the first letters of an app opens almost anything, the arrow pair gives you a split screen in two presses, and the terminal chord is the one Ubuntu has kept stable for well over a decade.

Open the Overview, Apps and System Menus

Pressing Super on its own opens the Activities overview with the search box already focused, so you can tap Super, type term and press Enter without touching anything else. The overview also shows your workspaces along the top, which comes in handy later. GNOME documents the overview keys on its useful keyboard shortcuts page, and these are the ones you’ll reach for daily:

Shortcut	What you’ll see
Super	Activities overview with search focused
Super + A	The full app grid
Super + S	Quick Settings: network, volume, Dark Style, screenshot and lock buttons
Super + V or Super + M	Notifications on the left, calendar on the right
Alt + F2	A one-line box that runs whatever command you type
Super + Escape	Gives shortcuts back when a remote desktop or VM window has grabbed them

The dock adds its own layer on top. Ubuntu’s dock binds Super + 1 through Super + 0 to the first ten icons, counting from the top, and running apps that aren’t pinned get a number too. You do not have to count: hold Super + Q and the dock flashes a number on every icon for two seconds.

On the lab desktop the open terminal sat at position 4, behind Firefox, Files and Help, so Super + 4 brought it forward. Pressing Super + 2 on a desktop with no Files window open launched Files instead. The rule you can rely on: Super + number focuses the app if it’s running and starts it if it isn’t, and Super + Ctrl + number always opens a new window.

Tile, Switch and Hide Windows

Window tiling on Ubuntu comes from the Ubuntu Tiling Assistant extension, not from GNOME itself. When the extension is on, it takes Super + Left, Right, Up and Down away from GNOME’s window manager and adds quarter tiling on the numeric keypad. You can see the handover in the lab: the extension’s overridden-settings key lists GNOME’s edge tiling, maximize, unmaximize and left and right tiling keys, and the maximize and unmaximize keys read empty, because the extension now answers them.

Shortcut	What it does on Ubuntu
Super + Left / Right	Tile to the left or right half (Tiling Assistant)
Super + Up	Maximize (Tiling Assistant)
Super + Down	Restore the window’s old size
Super + Numpad 8 / 2	Top / bottom half
Super + Numpad 7 / 9 / 1 / 3	Top-left / top-right / bottom-left / bottom-right quarter
Super + D	Show the desktop (hides every window, press again to bring them back)
Super + H	Minimize the active window
Alt + Tab	Switch between windows
Super + Tab	Switch between apps
Alt + ` (key above Tab)	Cycle windows of the current app

To get a terminal and a file browser side by side, press Ctrl + Alt + T, then Super + Left, then Super + 2 to open Files and Super + Right to tile it. On a 2560 by 1440 screen at 200% scaling, you end up with this split:

Notice that Files collapsed its sidebar once it only had half the screen. That’s the app adapting to the narrow window, not a bug, and the sidebar is back as soon as the window is wider again. If your keyboard has no numeric keypad, the quarter tiles have no usable default key, so bind them in Tiling Assistant’s own schema. The keys are tile-topleft-quarter, tile-topright-quarter, tile-bottomleft-quarter and tile-bottomright-quarter, and this gives the top-left one Super + Alt + U:

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.tiling-assistant tile-topleft-quarter "['<Super><Alt>u']"

Repeat it for the other three corners with keys you don’t already use, and check them first with the grep lookup in the gsettings section.

Two Ubuntu defaults surprise people coming from upstream GNOME guides. Super + D shows the desktop here, while plain GNOME leaves that key unbound. Alt + Tab switches individual windows on Ubuntu, while GNOME’s own default groups them by app; Super + Tab keeps the grouped app switcher if you prefer it. Both come from the Ubuntu session’s settings overrides, which is also why the next section’s workspace keys behave the way they do.

Move Between Workspaces

Ubuntu 26.04 uses dynamic workspaces: there’s always exactly one empty workspace after the last one you’re using, and an empty workspace disappears once you leave it. Workspaces only span the primary monitor by default, so a second screen stays put while you switch. These are the keys that move you and your windows around:

Shortcut	What it does
Super + Page Down / Page Up	Next / previous workspace
Super + Alt + Right / Left	Next / previous workspace
Ctrl + Alt + Right / Left	Next / previous workspace
Super + Shift + Page Down / Page Up	Take the active window to the next / previous workspace
Ctrl + Shift + Alt + Right / Left	Take the active window to the next / previous workspace
Super + Home / End	Jump to the first / last workspace

Super + Shift + Page Down moved the Files window to workspace 2 and followed it there. Pressing Super afterwards showed three workspace thumbnails along the top: the first with the terminal, the second with Files, and a third empty one that GNOME added on its own.

Moving a tiled window to another workspace drops the tiling, so Files came back at its floating size. Tile it again with Super + Left or Right once it lands. Numbered keys such as Super + 3 for “workspace 3” are not bound on Ubuntu at all, because the dock already uses Super + number. The Super + 1 to 4 section below swaps them over if you’d rather have workspaces there.

Take Screenshots and Record the Screen

Print opens GNOME’s screenshot tool, and you drive the tool with single letters once it’s up. Shift + Print and Alt + Print skip the tool and capture straight away, which is faster when you already know you want the whole screen or one window:

Key	What it does
Print	Opens the tool in Selection mode
Shift + Print	Saves the full screen immediately
Alt + Print	Saves the focused window immediately
Ctrl + Shift + Alt + R	Opens the same tool in video mode
S, C, W (inside the tool)	Selection, Screen, Window
V (inside the tool)	Switch between screenshot and screencast
Enter (inside the tool)	Capture
Esc (inside the tool)	Close without capturing

The lab console could not send a Print key, so the same tool was opened from Quick Settings instead: Super + S, then Enter on the camera button, which is focused first. That’s also your fallback on a laptop without a Print key.

Pressing W switched to Window mode, C to Screen, and V flipped the toggle to video. Enter saved Screenshot From 2026-11-06 03-58-59.png in ~/Pictures/Screenshots. Ctrl + Shift + Alt + R does not start recording on its own in this release: it opens the tool with video already selected (and Window greyed out), and recording starts when you press Enter.

Work Faster in the Ptyxis Terminal

Ctrl + Alt + T opens Ptyxis, which replaced GNOME Terminal as Ubuntu’s default terminal (the Ubuntu 26.04 release notes call it out). Most muscle memory carries over, because terminal shortcuts add Shift so plain Ctrl + C can still stop a running command. The full list lives in gsettings, and these are its defaults:

Shortcut	Ptyxis action
Ctrl + Shift + C / Ctrl + Shift + V	Copy / paste
Ctrl + Shift + A	Select all
Ctrl + Shift + T / Ctrl + Shift + N	New tab / new window
Ctrl + Shift + W / Ctrl + Shift + Q	Close tab / close window
Ctrl + Shift + Alt + T	Undo close tab
Ctrl + Shift + O	Tab overview
Ctrl + Page Up / Page Down	Previous / next tab
Ctrl + Shift + Page Up / Page Down	Move tab left / right
Alt + 1 to Alt + 9, Alt + 0	Tab 1 to 9, tab 10
Ctrl + Shift + F	Search the scrollback
Ctrl + plus / minus / 0	Zoom in / out / reset
F11	Full screen
Ctrl + comma	Preferences
Ctrl + ?	Keyboard shortcuts window

The tab overview is the one people miss. With two tabs open, Ctrl + Shift + O shows both as live thumbnails, titled with the folder each one is in:

You can rebind any of these in Ptyxis Preferences, or from the terminal under the org.gnome.Ptyxis.Shortcuts schema. If you live in a terminal all day, the tmux cheat sheet covers the keys inside the session, and the Linux terminal comparison shows how Ptyxis stacks up against Ghostty, Kitty and the rest.

Get Around Files (Nautilus) with the Keyboard

Files has its own searchable shortcuts window. Press Ctrl + ? inside any Files window and you’ll get it, grouped into Actions, View, Select, Navigation, Search, Windows & Tabs and App:

That window is complete but long. These are the Files shortcuts that save you the most clicks, and the first three were pressed on the lab desktop to confirm them:

Shortcut	What it does in Files
Ctrl + H	Show or hide dotfiles such as .bashrc and .config
Ctrl + L	Turn the path bar into an editable text box
Ctrl + .	Open the current folder in a new terminal window
Ctrl + 1 / Ctrl + 2	List view / grid view
Ctrl + Shift + N	New folder
F2	Rename the selected item
Ctrl + I or Alt + Enter	Properties
Ctrl + F / Ctrl + Shift + F	Search this folder / search everywhere
Ctrl + T / Ctrl + W	New tab / close tab
Ctrl + Enter	Open the selected folder in a new tab
Alt + Left / Right / Up	Back / forward / parent folder
Alt + Home	Home folder
Delete / Shift + Delete	Move to Trash / delete permanently
F9	Show or hide the sidebar
Ctrl + D	Bookmark the current folder

Ctrl + H followed by Ctrl + L is the pair you’ll use most when you’re fixing config files, since one reveals the hidden folders and the other lets you type or copy the exact path:

Ctrl + . opened a new Ptyxis window already sitting in the folder Files was showing. Shift + Delete is the one to be careful with. It skips the Trash, and the only thing between you and losing the file is a “Permanently Delete” prompt warning that the item can not be restored. Press Ctrl + H again to hide the dotfiles once you’re done with them.

Add a Custom Shortcut in Settings

Custom shortcuts launch any command with a key you pick. Windows users usually want Super + E for the file manager first, and it’s free on Ubuntu, so that’s the example here. You’ll find everything under Settings, in the Keyboard panel:

1. Open Settings, pick Keyboard in the sidebar and scroll to the bottom of the page.
2. Click View and Customize Shortcuts under Keyboard Shortcuts.

The Keyboard page also says which key switches input sources (Super + Space), and the shortcuts row sits at the very end of it:

1. 1Keyboard
2. 2View and Customize Shortcuts

The Keyboard Shortcuts dialog opens with a search box and one row per group. The Windows (4 modified) row is normal on Ubuntu: those four are the keys Tiling Assistant took over, not something you changed. Scroll to the end of the list, or press Tab and then End, and open Custom Shortcuts:

1. 1Windows (4 modified)
2. 2Custom Shortcuts

On a fresh install the Custom Shortcuts page is empty apart from one button. Click Add Shortcut to open the form:

Fill in all three fields, since the Add button stays disabled until each one has a value:

1. Type Files in Name. It’s only the label you’ll see in this list.
2. Type nautilus --new-window in Command. The flag tells Files to always open a new window, so the key never just raises an old one.
3. Click Set Shortcut and press Super + E. The Shortcut field then shows the keys you pressed.
4. Click Add.

1. 1Name
2. 2Command
3. 3Shortcut
4. 4Add

No warning appeared for Super + E, and the new entry showed up in the list straight away. Close Settings and press Super + E: a new Files window opens on your home folder with no logout needed. Settings saved it as a custom0 entry, which matters for the next section.

Create Custom Shortcuts with gsettings

Everything in that dialog lives in GSettings, so you can read and write it from a terminal, put it in a setup script, or copy it to a new laptop. Start by reading a binding, which is also how you check what a key really does on your machine:

gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings show-desktop

On Ubuntu you’ll see three keys for showing the desktop, which plain GNOME doesn’t bind at all:

['<Primary><Super>d', '<Primary><Alt>d', '<Super>d']

Before you claim a key, check who already owns it. This searches every schema at once, which is how you’d find that Super + 1 belongs to two things on Ubuntu:

gsettings list-recursively | grep -i "'<super>1'"

Both the dock and GNOME Shell bind it, and the dock wins while its hotkeys are on:

org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock app-hotkey-1 ['<Super>1']
org.gnome.shell.keybindings switch-to-application-1 ['<Super>1']

Here are those lookups together in the terminal, along with the Tiling Assistant key that explains Super + Left:

A custom shortcut takes two writes. First the custom-keybindings list gets the new entry’s path, then the entry gets its name, command and binding. The list is replaced as a whole, so it must include every entry you want to keep. This machine already had custom0 from Settings, which is why both paths are listed and the new entry is custom1. On a machine with no custom shortcuts, change custom1 to custom0 on all five lines that name it and list only that one path, otherwise the key is stored but never fires:

KB=org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys
P=/org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/custom-keybindings
gsettings set $KB custom-keybindings "['$P/custom0/', '$P/custom1/']"
gsettings set $KB.custom-keybinding:$P/custom1/ name 'Text Editor'
gsettings set $KB.custom-keybinding:$P/custom1/ command 'gnome-text-editor'
gsettings set $KB.custom-keybinding:$P/custom1/ binding '<Super>t'

Confirm both entries are stored by dumping the media-keys tree with dconf:

dconf dump /org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/

The Super + E shortcut from Settings and the new Super + T one sit side by side:

[/]
custom-keybindings=['/org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/custom-keybindings/custom0/', '/org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/custom-keybindings/custom1/']

[custom-keybindings/custom0]
binding='<Super>e'
command='nautilus --new-window'
name='Files'

[custom-keybindings/custom1]
binding='<Super>t'
command='gnome-text-editor'
name='Text Editor'

The whole run looked like this in the terminal:

The new key works the moment the last gsettings set returns. Pressing Super + T on the desktop opened Text Editor right away:

Binding strings use GTK’s syntax, and a typo there leaves you with a key that silently does nothing. Check yours against these rules before you run the set command:

• You wrap each modifier in angle brackets: <Super>, <Shift>, <Alt>, and <Primary> for Ctrl.
• You write a letter key in lower case after the modifiers, so Super + T is '<Super>t'. Named keys keep their exact keysym spelling, such as Page_Down, Home, Print or KP_7.
• You stack modifiers with no separator, so Ctrl + Alt + E is '<Primary><Alt>e'.
• You wrap a command that needs pipes or && in sh -c '...', because the command runs without a shell.

Once the string is right, the key works for every app on the desktop, which is the whole point of putting it in GSettings instead of an app’s own preferences.

Use Super+1 to 4 for Workspaces Instead of Apps

If you keep each project on its own workspace, Super + 1 to 4 jumping straight to a workspace beats paging through them one at a time. Ubuntu will not let you just bind those keys, because the dock and GNOME Shell both hold them already. The fix turns off the dock hotkeys, clears Shell’s app keys and then binds the workspace actions:

gsettings set org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock hot-keys false
for i in 1 2 3 4; do gsettings set org.gnome.shell.keybindings switch-to-application-$i "[]"; gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-to-workspace-$i "['<Super>$i']"; gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings move-to-workspace-$i "['<Super><Shift>$i']"; done

Searching for Super + 2 afterwards still lists the dock’s app-hotkey-2, which is expected: the key is stored but ignored while hot-keys is false.

To test it, press Super + Shift + 2 with a window focused, then Super + 1 and Super + 2. In the lab that window was Text Editor. The editor moved to workspace 2, Super + 1 went back to the first workspace and Super + 2 returned to the editor. With dynamic workspaces, Super + 4 only works once workspaces 1 to 3 have windows on them, since workspace 4 does not exist before that. To get the dock’s app keys back, reset everything you changed:

for i in 1 2 3 4; do gsettings reset org.gnome.shell.keybindings switch-to-application-$i; gsettings reset org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-to-workspace-$i; gsettings reset org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings move-to-workspace-$i; done
gsettings reset org.gnome.shell.extensions.dash-to-dock hot-keys

After the reset, gsettings get org.gnome.shell.keybindings switch-to-application-1 printed ['<Super>1'] again and Super + Q showed the dock numbers.

Back Up and Restore Your Shortcuts

Custom shortcuts survive upgrades, but they do not follow you to a new machine or a fresh install. A dconf dump of the media-keys tree is a plain text file you can keep in your dotfiles, and dconf load puts it back:

dconf dump /org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/ > ~/custom-shortcuts.ini

On the new machine, log in to the desktop and load the file from a terminal in that session:

dconf load /org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/ < ~/custom-shortcuts.ini

The round trip was tested in the lab: back up, wipe the custom list with gsettings reset-recursively (it read @as []), load the file, and both entries came back. Only run that reset if you want to test it yourself, since it resets every media-key and launcher shortcut you changed and empties your custom shortcut list:

A dump of the window keys shows only what differs from the default, so it doubles as an audit. On the lab machine, the window keys dump listed just two lines once the workspace keys were reset: maximize=@as [] and unmaximize=@as []. Those two are Tiling Assistant’s handiwork, and copying them to another Ubuntu machine is harmless. Before you reinstall, tick these off:

• You have custom-shortcuts.ini saved somewhere off the machine.
• You dumped /org/gnome/desktop/wm/keybindings/ too if you changed any window or workspace keys.
• You dumped /org/gnome/shell/keybindings/ if you changed screenshot, overview or Super + number keys.

Each dump restores the same way, with dconf load and the matching path, so you can keep all three files in one dotfiles folder.

Fix Shortcuts That Do Nothing

Each of these came up while testing, and each has a quick check.

gsettings over SSH prints different shortcuts than the desktop uses

Ubuntu ships its defaults as overrides that only apply when XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP says ubuntu:GNOME. A terminal on the desktop has that set. An SSH session or a cron job does not, so gsettings there reports the raw schema defaults, without the GNOME or Ubuntu session overrides. The lab showed the same key reading two different ways:

gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings show-desktop
XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=ubuntu:GNOME gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings show-desktop

Without the variable the binding looks empty, and with it you get the three keys the desktop really uses:

@as []
['<Primary><Super>d', '<Primary><Alt>d', '<Super>d']

Other keys that the session overrides, such as dynamic workspaces, split the same way. Set the variable, or run your gsettings commands from a terminal inside the session, before you trust what they print.

Super+2 opens an app instead of workspace 2

That’s the dock. Setting switch-to-workspace-2 alone is not enough on Ubuntu, because the dock’s hotkeys and Shell’s switch-to-application-2 grab the key first. Use the three-part change in the Super + 1 to 4 section, then check with gsettings list-recursively | grep -i "'<super>2'".

Print does nothing in a VM console or remote desktop

Remote consoles often cannot send Print at all, and laptops without the key have the same problem. Open Quick Settings with Super + S and press Enter on the screenshot button, or bind show-screenshot-ui in org.gnome.shell.keybindings to a second key you do have. In a full-screen VM or remote desktop window, Super + Escape hands shortcuts back to Ubuntu if the guest has grabbed them.

Settings says Windows has 4 modified shortcuts

You did not change anything. Tiling Assistant empties GNOME’s own maximize, unmaximize and left and right tiling keys so that its versions answer Super + arrow. Settings counts those emptied keys as modified. Leave them alone unless you’ve switched the extension off. If you’re coming from another desktop, the Windows 11 keyboard shortcuts and macOS keyboard shortcuts cheat sheets use the same layout. The Ubuntu 26.04 desktop install guide gets you to this desktop in the first place, and the Fedora 45 vs Ubuntu 26.04 comparison covers how plain GNOME on Fedora differs.