Bash keyboard shortcuts in iTerm like Alt+d and Alt+f

macos bash keyboard-shortcuts iterm iterm2
rewolf picture rewolf · Sep 20, 2013 · Viewed 25.5k times · Source

Everyone at work recommended iTerm2 to me instead of the native Terminal. But iTerm2 doesn't seem to allow me to use bash shortcuts like Alt+B and Alt+F to jump back/forward between tokens, or Alt+D to delete a word.

I can't imagine this isn't available. Can anyone help me out?

Answer

chepner picture chepner · Sep 20, 2013

The Option key (the Mac name for the Alt key) by default has other uses. Press Command+O to open the list of profiles, select Default (I assume that is the profile you are using), and click "Edit Profiles...". In the resulting window, click on the "Keys" tab, and select "+Esc" for one or both option keys. This should cause iTerm to treat the Option key the way you are accustomed.

Alternatively, you can simply use the Escape key instead.

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