How can I get control+left arrow to go back one word in iTerm2?

Question

I was reading up in the Linux manual and I noticed that it said I could use control+left and control+right to move forward and back words in the terminal while editing.

"Pressing Ctrl plus the Left or Right arrow key moves backward or forward a word at a time, as does pressing Esc and then B or F."

On OS X control+left and control+right normally control spaces. I have disabled those. I also tried to use the preferences pane to set the keyboard shortcuts:

enter image description here

However this does not work and causes this error:

enter image description here

Also, if I am in iTerm and use alt+escape then B or F the character moves back and forth. This was happening before any of my config changes. But I'd really like to be able to use control + the arrow keys.

Incidentally, a more parsimonious way to achieve this might simply be to map command+left and command+right instead of ctrl+left and ctrl+right. I didn't need to disable anything system-wide to accomplish this. — Translunar, Jul 16 '14 at 19:35

score 163 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 08 '21 at 08:10

163

bash

Just add the following to ~/.inputrc:

"\e[1;5D": backward-word
"\e[1;5C": forward-word

See this archived Wiki post for some more explanation. If you want to use the alt key instead for word-to-word movement (like default OS X behavior), use:

"\e[1;9D": backward-word
"\e[1;9C": forward-word

zsh

zsh by default does not use the readline library and therefore won't read ~/.inputrc. To get the same functionality, you could add the following to your ~/.zshrc to use ctrl:

bindkey -e
bindkey '\e\e[C' forward-word
bindkey '\e\e[D' backward-word

To use the alt key:

bindkey -e
bindkey '^[[1;9C' forward-word
bindkey '^[[1;9D' backward-word

See this documentation for more about the built-in zsh line editor (zle).

Why is this? You've set up your profile to use the Xterm defaults:

enter image description here

This is why you'll need to "catch" this sequence and tell readline what to do.

If the above still doesn't work and you are using OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) or there abouts, you probably need to disable the global Mission Control shortcuts which prevent Control+arrow keys from reaching iTerm, even if Mission Control itself is disabled. You can do so from System Preferences → Keyboard → Shortcuts → Mission Control:

mission control keyboard prefs

edited Jun 08 '21 at 08:10

Steve Bennett

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answered Nov 14 '11 at 19:15

slhck

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I try to follow the instruction to get the alt + left and alt + right keys working. I added the two lines to my .inputrc file, but the only thing what happens when I press the keys is that either a "D" or a "C" gets printed to the shell. I'm using iTerm2 with zsh shell. Any ideas? – Flo Nov 27 '12 at 11:23
2

@Flo Try adding the lines `bindkey -e`, `bindkey '^[[1;9C' forward-word` and `bindkey '^[[1;9D' backward-word` to your `~/.zshrc` instead. IIRC zsh won't read `.inputrc` – or at least it works for me this way. – slhck Nov 27 '12 at 11:49
@slhck, sure I will create a new question, though alt+left does work on vim, alt+right doesn't. Very weird, I will create a new question now. – seds Sep 02 '13 at 16:15
@Ben No idea, sorry! I'm really just the guy who uses vim for commit messages and quick fixes. I bountied your question so you'd get more attention on it. – slhck Sep 06 '13 at 06:01
***UGH, god***, THANK YOU. especially for the `zsh` specific info. I was going to ***SCREAM*** if I typed `D` oe more time! – mralexgray Oct 11 '13 at 06:35
2

Not working for me with ctrl-left/right + bash, but works fine if I set it up for alt-left/right. – Dalin Jan 18 '14 at 03:22
5

Added an edit about Mission Control shortcuts preventing any of this from working in the most aggravatingly opaque manner. Hopefully it saves someone from going through the same thing I just did urgh... – rubyruy Jan 22 '14 at 18:22
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For OSX + zsh + iTerm2 + ctrl-left/right use the following: `bindkey -e; bindkey '\e\e[C' forward-word; bindkey '\e\e[D' backward-word` – Artur Bodera Apr 11 '14 at 09:30
For some reason my OSX preferences were restored to defaults.. – Koen. Apr 28 '14 at 15:19
This works but only in the local shell. If I ssh to another box it only moves 1 character. In the default terminal app ^left and ^right work locally and remotely. Anyone have an idea? – marcantonio May 22 '15 at 23:49
Disregard. I just needed to start a new ssh session! – marcantonio May 22 '15 at 23:55
@ArturBodera thanks for posting! works perfectly and interprets holding the arrow key down as repeated movements, rather than having to press the arrow key each time for each word (which I had to do with the BetterTouchTool solution http://superuser.com/a/584175/83693) – Julian A. Nov 27 '15 at 23:31
The link http://code.google.com/p/iterm2/wiki/Keybindings is dead, do you know where is it relocated to? – gerrytan Jan 20 '16 at 21:45
@gerrytan You can still access it through the [Wayback Archive](https://web.archive.org/web/20121226151631/http://code.google.com/p/iterm2/wiki/Keybindings). – slhck Jan 21 '16 at 10:51
You really don't need `bindkey -e` to make this work. Maybe you just like EMACS and are trying subconsciously bring people to it. Try it with `bindkey -v` for `vi`. – DrBeco Oct 07 '19 at 21:29
What worked for me in ~/.zprofile to navigate words with Control+Arrows is the following: `bindkey -e` `bindkey '^[[1;5C' forward-word` `bindkey '^[[1;5D' backward-word` – Saverio Proto Sep 02 '22 at 07:07

score 95 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 12 '20 at 13:48

95

Working solution for zsh. Simple, straightforward, out-of-the-box.

Goto: ⌘, Preferences → Profiles → Keys → Keyboard Behavior
Load Preset: Natural Text Editing

Load Preset "Natural Text Editing"

edited Jun 12 '20 at 13:48

Community

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answered Dec 17 '16 at 19:49

Happy Torturer

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Thanks @Happy Torturer, I believe it's best answer mostly because I don't have on plain Terminal.app that problem so I don't want to modify bash/zsh, just want to work everything like in Terminal.app. – galuszkak Sep 23 '17 at 17:07
1

This, this, this. Thank you so much for this solution! I've gone through this maddening process with each Mac I get. I now know the simplest way to make this happen. Thank you! – vernonk Nov 22 '17 at 04:55
This should be the accepted answer. I wonder, is there any way to load this preset from the command line rather than going through the settings GUI? – Janosh Dec 16 '19 at 09:20
This should've improved the @rassom answer rather than providing a same answer with screenshot. – Player1 Jun 01 '21 at 15:40
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Worked for me, but I needed to also disable misson control shortcuts that were having higher priority, once disabled that "Naturel Text Editing" worked – Guillaume Petit Nov 27 '21 at 21:14
I appear to be missing this preset :/ – Shayne Dec 02 '22 at 01:58
This should be the correct answer. – Jay Aug 08 '23 at 03:53

score 19 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 02 '21 at 07:04

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I fixed it this way:

In top menu; go to

Profiles 
-> Open profiles... 
-> Edit profiles... (button) 
-> Keys (tab) 
-> Load Preset... (dropdown) 
->  Choose "Natural text editing". Done! :-)

edited Jun 02 '21 at 07:04

Player1

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answered Nov 30 '16 at 16:22

rassom

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all i have under that preset is "Factory Defaults" – MaylorTaylor Sep 10 '18 at 02:29
Same, only "Factory defaults" – Shayne Dec 02 '22 at 01:57

score 7 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 17 '13 at 17:16

I used a different approach. Using BetterTouchTool I programmed a custom keyboard shortcut for iTerm2. When I press alt-left in iTerm2, it sends the keyboard shortcut ctrl-left with the action "Send keyboard shortcut to specific application". The application is iTerm2. I did the same for alt-right mapped to ctrl-right.

The effect is that pressing alt-left or alt-right in iTerm sends a ctrl-left or ctrl-right directly to iTerm2, bypassing the usual system-wide shortcut to move a desktop left or right. Like this I get the typical mac behaviour in iTerm2, on local terminal sessions, but also on remote SSH sessions and I can use the standard ctrl-left / ctrl-right to move to different desktops. I wrote it up here:

http://www.callum-macdonald.com/2013/04/17/ctrl-left-and-ctrl-right-on-iterm2/

BetterTouchTool is not open source and could very well be doing things you wish it wasn't. The guy says he's a student but he could just as well be a three letter agency. — revacuate, Jan 04 '16 at 17:43

score 7 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 20 '15 at 08:09

7

Actually, I found the easiest solution was to go to my profile settings (found in Profiles/Keys), removing the offending profile shortcuts(as profile overrides global in iTerm), in my case alt+left and alt+right and then the global shortcuts worked perfectly for me!

Also, if you're using OS X, it's probably best to stick with system wide shortcuts, i.e. using alt+left and alt+right instead for this purpose, having different behaviour in terminal is bound to cause a pain eventually.

Other than that chmac's solution to use Better Touch Tool was an elegant way to change control+arrow's behaviour in iterm only.

answered Mar 20 '15 at 08:09

nayyarv

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actually this is the best solution. It is confusing as most of us go to `Keys` tab. Instead we have to go to `Profiles` tab -> A profile(eg default) -> keys. – Paschalis Nov 03 '15 at 17:26
This is definitely the safest and easiest solution. – revacuate Jan 04 '16 at 19:14

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Jun 02 '16 at 14:51

2

This post teaches this and others shortcuts as ⌥←Delete to delete a word:

http://elweb.co/making-iterm-2-work-with-normal-mac-osx-keyboard-shortcuts/

answered Jun 02 '16 at 14:51

Seralto

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This doesn't actually answer the question, which is about using – DavidPostill Jun 02 '16 at 15:38
All you have to do is use the shortcut that fits your need. "" or whatever you want. – Seralto Jun 02 '16 at 16:05
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So please quote the essential parts of the answer from the reference link(s), as the answer can become invalid if the linked page(s) change. – DavidPostill Jun 02 '16 at 16:12

score 1 · Answer 7 · edited Jan 06 '16 at 04:45

1

You need to go into the Profiles tab and delete the mapping for alt+left and alt+right as by default it outputs some hex values.

edited Jan 06 '16 at 04:45

Giacomo1968

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answered Jan 05 '16 at 23:13

Sid

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This did it for me! – Philip May 26 '16 at 17:52

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Apr 29 '23 at 05:49

0

In the newer versions of iTerm (as of writing 3.4.19):

Navigate to Preferences → Profiles → Keys → Key Mappings.

From Presets dropdown, select Natural Text Editing.

answered Apr 29 '23 at 05:49

Saikat

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Thanks a lot. Saved me tons of headache. – Ilya Jul 11 '23 at 21:37
what does this answer bring in addition to the two others that mention Natural Text Editing, while those ones also have screenshots ? – Ciprian Tomoiagă Jul 27 '23 at 08:32

How can I get control+left arrow to go back one word in iTerm2?

8 Answers8

bash

zsh

Linked