Bash Keyboard Shortcuts - Mac

Enable Option Key as Meta in iTerm. Set as Esc+ - http://stackoverflow.com/a/438892

Moving the cursor

• Ctrl + a Go to the beginning of the line (Home)
• Ctrl + e Go to the End of the line (End)
• Ctrl + p Previous command (Up arrow)
• Ctrl + n Next command (Down arrow)
• Alt + b Back (left) one word
• Alt + f Forward (right) one word
• Ctrl + f Forward one character
• Ctrl + b Backward one character
• Ctrl + xx Toggle between the start of line and current cursor position

Editing

• Ctrl + L Clear the Screen, similar to the clear command
• Ctrl + u Cut/delete the line before the cursor position.
• Alt + Del Delete the Word before the cursor.
• Alt + d Delete the Word after the cursor.
• Ctrl + d Delete character under the cursor
• Ctrl + h Delete character before the cursor (backspace)
• Ctrl + w Cut the Word before the cursor to the clipboard.
• Ctrl + k Cut the Line after the cursor to the clipboard.
• Alt + t Swap current word with previous
• Ctrl + t Swap the last two characters before the cursor (typo).
• Esc + t Swap the last two words before the cursor.
• Ctrl + y Paste the last thing to be cut (yank)
• Alt + u Capitalize every character from the cursor to the end of the current word.
• Alt + l Lower the case of every character from the cursor to the end of the current word.
• Alt + c Capitalize the character under the cursor and move to the end of the word.
• Alt + r Cancel the changes and put back the line as it was in the history (revert).
• Ctrl + _ Undo
• Tab Tab completion for file/directory names

History

• Ctrl + r Recall the last command including the specified character(s) (equivalent to : vim ~/.bash_history).
• Ctrl + p Previous command in history (i.e. walk back through the command history)
• Ctrl + n Next command in history (i.e. walk forward through the command history)
• Alt + . Use the last word of the previous command
• Ctrl + s Go back to the next most recent command. (beware to not execute it from a terminal because this will also launch its XOFF).
• Ctrl + o Execute the command found via Ctrl+r or Ctrl+s
• Ctrl + g Escape from history searching mode

Process control

• Ctrl + C Interrupt/Kill whatever you are running (SIGINT)
• Ctrl + l Clear the screen
• Ctrl + s Stop output to the screen (for long running verbose commands)
• Ctrl + q Allow output to the screen (if previously stopped using command above)
• Ctrl + D Send an EOF marker, unless disabled by an option, this will close the current shell (EXIT)
• Ctrl + Z Send the signal SIGTSTP to the current task, which suspends it. To return to it later enter fg 'process name' (foreground).