command line cursor moving shortcuts


  • ALT+F to jump Forward by a word.
  • ALT+B to jump Backward by a word.

Additionally some Emacs-style key bindings for simple text navigation seem to work on bash shells. You can use:

  • CTRL+F to move forward by a char
  • CTRL+B to move backward by a char
  • CTRL+A to jump to start of the line
  • CTRL+E to jump to end of the line
  • CTRL+K to kill the line starting from the cursor position
  • ALT+D to delete a word starting from the current cursor position
  • CTRL+W to remove the word backwards from cursor position
  • CTRL+Y to paste text from the kill buffer
  • CTRL+R to reverse search for commands you typed in the past from your history.
  • CTRL+S to forward search (works in ZSH for me but not bash)