The mouse is slow. Every time your hand leaves the keyboard to click something, you lose a second or two — and those seconds add up. macOS has a deep set of keyboard shortcuts that most developers use only a fraction of, often because they were never laid out in one place. This cheat sheet focuses on what’s actually useful in a development context: text editing, window management, terminal, Finder, and the system shortcuts that replace common mouse clicks.

System-Wide Shortcuts

These work across virtually every macOS application.

Shortcut Action
Cmd+Space Spotlight search — launch apps, convert units, do math
Cmd+Tab Switch between open apps
Cmd+ Switch between windows of the current app
Cmd+Q Quit the current app
Cmd+W Close the current tab or window
Cmd+H Hide the current app
Cmd+M Minimize the current window
Cmd+, Open preferences/settings for the current app
Cmd+Z Undo
Cmd+Shift+Z Redo
Cmd+C / Cmd+V / Cmd+X Copy / Paste / Cut
Cmd+A Select all
Cmd+F Find
Cmd+S Save
Cmd+P Print (or in VS Code: quick open)

Text Editing

These work in every native text field — Terminal, browser address bar, editor, Slack, email.

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+A Jump to beginning of line
Ctrl+E Jump to end of line
Ctrl+K Delete from cursor to end of line
Ctrl+U Delete from cursor to beginning of line
Ctrl+W Delete the word before the cursor
Ctrl+F / Ctrl+B Move forward / backward one character
Option+→ / Option+← Jump forward / backward one word
Cmd+→ / Cmd+← Jump to end / beginning of line
Cmd+↑ / Cmd+↓ Jump to top / bottom of document
Shift+Option+→ Select next word
Shift+Cmd+→ Select to end of line
Fn+Delete Forward delete (delete character to the right)
Option+Delete Delete word to the left of cursor

The Ctrl+A, Ctrl+E, Ctrl+K trio is particularly useful in the terminal — they come from readline and work in bash, zsh, and most REPLs.

Terminal Shortcuts

These apply to the terminal application itself (iTerm2 or Terminal.app), separate from shell-level shortcuts.

Shortcut Action
Cmd+T New tab
Cmd+N New window
Cmd+D Split pane vertically (iTerm2)
Cmd+Shift+D Split pane horizontally (iTerm2)
Cmd+Option+Arrow Navigate between panes (iTerm2)
Cmd+[1–9] Switch to tab by number
Cmd+K Clear scrollback buffer
Cmd+F Search terminal buffer
Ctrl+C Interrupt / kill current process
Ctrl+Z Suspend current process (resume with fg)
Ctrl+D Send EOF / exit current shell
Ctrl+L Clear screen (keeps scrollback)
Ctrl+R Search command history interactively
!! Repeat last command
!$ Last argument of previous command

Finder Shortcuts

Shortcut Action
Cmd+Shift+G Go to folder (type any path, supports tab completion)
Cmd+Shift+H Go to home directory
Cmd+Shift+D Go to Desktop
Cmd+Shift+F Go to Recents
Cmd+Option+L Go to Downloads
Cmd+I Get Info on selected file
Cmd+Delete Move selected file to Trash
Cmd+Shift+Delete Empty Trash
Space Quick Look preview (works on images, PDFs, videos)
Cmd+Shift+. Show/hide hidden files (dotfiles)
Return Rename selected file

Cmd+Shift+. is the one most developers don’t know: it toggles visibility of dotfiles like .zshrc, .env, and .git directories right in Finder.

Screenshot Shortcuts

Shortcut Action
Cmd+Shift+3 Screenshot entire screen (saved to Desktop)
Cmd+Shift+4 Screenshot selection (drag to select area)
Cmd+Shift+4 then Space Screenshot a specific window
Cmd+Shift+5 Screenshot toolbar with all options
Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+3 Screenshot entire screen to clipboard
Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+4 Screenshot selection to clipboard

Adding Ctrl to any screenshot shortcut copies to clipboard instead of saving to disk — useful when you want to paste directly into Slack or an issue.

Window Management

macOS’s native window management is basic, but these help. Install Rectangle (brew install --cask rectangle) for tiling shortcuts.

Shortcut Action
Cmd+Option+H Hide all other apps (focus current)
Ctrl+↑ Mission Control (all open windows)
Ctrl+↓ Show all windows of current app
Ctrl+→ / Ctrl+← Switch between Spaces (virtual desktops)
Ctrl+1, Ctrl+2 … Jump to a specific Space
F11 Show Desktop (hide all windows)

Rectangle shortcuts (after install):

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+Option+← Left half
Ctrl+Option+→ Right half
Ctrl+Option+↑ Top half
Ctrl+Option+↓ Bottom half
Ctrl+Option+Enter Maximize
Ctrl+Option+C Center window
Ctrl+Option+U/I/J/K Quarter corners

Spotlight as a Calculator and Unit Converter

Spotlight (Cmd+Space) doubles as a quick calculator and converter — no app needed:

143 * 24          → 3432
sqrt(144)         → 12
100 USD in INR    → ₹8,340.00
10 km in miles    → 6.21 miles
500 MB in GB      → 0.49 GB

Conclusion

Most of these shortcuts take a few days of deliberate use to become muscle memory — don’t try to learn all of them at once. Start with the text editing row (Ctrl+A, Ctrl+E, Ctrl+K, Option+Delete) since they work everywhere, then add the Finder dotfile toggle (Cmd+Shift+.) and the clipboard screenshot shortcut (Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+4). Those five alone will save noticeable time within a week.