Keybindings

You can rebind almost anything from the GUI, or edit config.toml directly. The two stay in sync — GUI changes are written back to your config file.

View and Change Shortcut Keys

Settings → Key Bindings lists every bindable action, grouped by category (General, Tabs, Pane, …). The chips on the right show each action's current chord; a dash (—) means it's unbound.

• Search — the box at the top filters the whole list by action name or by chord (type cmd+t to find what's on that combo).
• Rebind — click a row (it highlights and shows Press a key combination…), then press the new chord. The chips update immediately.
• Conflicts — if the chord is already taken, a Conflicts with: … note appears under the row so you can pick something else or overwrite it.
• Unbind — click the row and press Backspace to clear it. Press Esc to cancel without changing anything.

Global Hotkey

On macOS, Otty can register one system-wide shortcut that brings Otty to the front even while another app is active. If no Otty window is open, the same shortcut opens one.

Set it in Settings → Key Bindings → Global Hotkey:

1. Click Open Otty Window.
2. Press the shortcut you want to use, such as ⌘⇧Space.
3. Leave it as — if you do not want a global hotkey.

Use a shortcut with at least one modifier (⌘, ⌥, ⌃, or ⇧). macOS may reserve some system shortcuts, so if a chord does not record or does not fire, choose another one that is not already used by Mission Control, Spotlight, your window manager, or another app.

This hotkey is different from normal keybindings: it is handled by macOS before Otty is focused, so it does not send input to the terminal and it does not depend on which tab or pane was active last.

Custom Text / Sequence

The Text / Sequence section binds a chord to send literal bytes to the focused terminal — useful for emitting an escape sequence a program expects, or for typing a snippet of text.

Each binding's action is a prefix plus a payload:

Prefix	Sends	Example	Result
text:	the literal string	text:hi	types hi
csi:	a CSI sequence (ESC [ + payload)	csi:17~	the F6 key sequence
esc:	ESC + payload	esc:O	escape followed by O

To add one: click + Add, click the trigger button to record a chord, type the action (e.g. csi:17~), and it's saved. The trash icon on a row deletes that binding.

Shortcut keys for custom commands and layouts

The Commands / Recipe section mirrors any recipe that has a shortcut assigned. It's read-only here — assign and edit recipe shortcuts in the Recipes tab.

• If nothing is bound yet you'll see No recipes have a shortcut assigned yet.
• Click Open Recipes → to jump to the Recipes tab, where each recipe row has a shortcut button you click and record into.

Keybindings in config file

Customize key bindings in ~/.config/otty/config.toml.

Syntax is

keybind = <modifier-chord>:<action>

Repeat the keybind key to add more bindings. Examples:

keybind = cmd+t:new_tab
keybind = cmd+w:close_pane
keybind = cmd+shift+t:reopen_closed
keybind = cmd+1:goto_tab:1
keybind = ctrl+shift+c:copy_to_clipboard
keybind = unbind:cmd+q                # disable a default

Modifier names: cmd, ctrl, alt (or opt), shift. Chord with +. Multi-key sequences with >: cmd+b>cmd+v.

Resetting

Once you've changed any binding, a Reset to Default button appears in the top-right of the Key Bindings pane. Click it, confirm Reset all key bindings?, and every customization is cleared at once — there's no per-row revert.

To reset a single binding instead, delete its keybind line from config.toml (or restore the default chord in the GUI).

Full default reference

See Reference → Keybindings for the complete list shipped with Otty.

See also

• Configuration Reference — every other config key.
• Vi Mode — vi-style scrollback navigation.