Troubleshooting problems with keyboard shortcuts

First of all, check whether the shortcut should work as you expect. It may be obvious for shortcuts like Ctrl0C and Ctrl0V, but shortcuts like Alt+Up or Ctrl0W often perform different actions depending on the application and the operating system.

Taking into account different expectations regarding shortcuts, IntelliJ IDEA lets you choose between keymaps (predefined sets of shortcuts). If you worked with a specific editor or IDE before, you can switch to a keymap with the corresponding name, such as Eclipse, NetBeans, Sublime Text, or VSCode, and use the same shortcuts as in that editor or IDE.

1. Press CtrlAlt0S to open settings and then select Keymap.

2. Make sure that you are using the correct keymap.

3. Use the search field to check whether the shortcuts are mapped as expected.

Alternatively, you can select the desired keymap at the top of this documentation page, and check the list of shortcuts to study keyboard mappings in that keymap.

• Predefined Windows keymap

• Predefined macOS keymap

If you think that the default mapping for a specific shortcut is incorrect for a particular keymap, let us know by filing an issue in our issue tracker.

All keymaps in IntelliJ IDEA are designed for the QWERTY US English keyboard layout. If you use a keyboard layout for another Latin-script alphabet, some shortcuts may not work because characters used in those shortcuts may not have dedicated keyboard keys.

For example, there is no dedicated keyboard key for the forward slash / in the German keyboard layout, and therefore it is impossible to use the Ctrl0/ shortcut to comment the current line.

The recommended workaround in this case is to install the Keymap Nationalizer plugin, which will generate a non-conflicting keymap for your keyboard layout. Alternatively, you can fix specific shortcuts by assigning another shortcut instead of the one that doesn't work.

Regardless of the workaround, we're still looking for a solution that would work out-of-the-box for any keyboard layout. The progress is tracked in this issue.

If the shortcut includes function keys F1... F12, it may not work because these keys are often mapped to utility actions by default, such as changing speaker volume or screen brightness.

You can make such shortcuts work in one of the following ways:

• On keyboards that have a Fn key, press this key together with the original key combination.

• Change the default behaviour of function keys. The procedure varies depending on your computer manufacturer; if you are running IntelliJ IDEA on macOS, refer to this article.

On the Keymap settings page, click Find Actions by Shortcut, and then press the key combination.

If the field in the Find Shortcut popup remains empty after you press a key combination. This means that some other program or your operating system intercepted the shortcut.

When the shortcut that you pressed appears in the Find Shortcut popup, this means that the IDE can handle this shortcut. Check the list of actions mapped to this shortcut:

• If the expected action doesn't appear in the list, assign a shortcut manually as a workaround, and file an issue in our issue tracker.

• If the expected action appears together with other actions, it is by design in most cases because those actions should be available in different contexts. In the example below, the Ctrl+Shift+U shortcut is assigned to both Toggle Case, which works in the editor, and Unshelve, which works in the Commit window.

  

  If the shortcut doesn't work as expected or doesn't work at all in specific context, remove shortcuts from other actions (right-click and choose Remove shortcut) as a workaround, and file an issue in our issue tracker.

• If you have custom plugins installed on the Plugins page, there may be a chance that one of them intercepts the shortcut. Try disabling custom plugins and see whether it helps.

• If the expected action appears in the list without other actions, but it still doesn't work as expected in the expected IDE context, assign some other shortcut manually as a workaround, and file an issue in our issue tracker.