Nano

  • simple text editor for command line
  • macOS ships with it by default, but old version, might not support all keyboard shortcuts below, e.g. Undo, Redo, Save without prompt

Keyboard Shortcuts

Notation

  • ^ is the control key, e.g. CTRL on Mac
  • M- is the meta key, e.g. ESC on Mac (or ALT if “Use option as meta key” is enabled in Terminal > Settings > Profiles > Keyboard)
  • only uses lower case letters, e.g. M-U means ESC + u

Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcut Effect
^G Show help
^O, ^S Save with(out) prompt
^X Exit
^C Cancel
▲, ^P Move up
▼, ^N Move down
◀︎, ^B Move left
▶︎, ^N Move up
^A / ^E Jump to start / end of line
^Space / M-Space Jump forward / backward one word
^V / ^Y Jump down / up one page
^_ Jump to line number
M-A Start marking text
M-6 Copy marked region / current line
^K Cut marked region / current line
^U Paste
M-U / M-E Undo / redo last operation

Resources