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:

However this does not work and causes this error:

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.

Solution 1

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:

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:

Solution 2

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

1. Goto: ⌘, Preferences → Profiles → Keys → Keyboard Behavior

2. Load Preset: Natural Text Editing

Solution 3

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! :-)

Solution 4

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/

Solution 5

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.

View more solutions

Comments

[Admin]

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.

[Flo]

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?

[slhck]

@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.

[seds]

@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.

[slhck]

@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.

[mralexgray]

UGH, god, THANK YOU. especially for the zsh specific info. I was going to SCREAM if I typed D oe more time!

[Dalin]

Not working for me with ctrl-left/right + bash, but works fine if I set it up for alt-left/right.

[rubyruy]

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...

[Artur Bodera]

For OSX + zsh + iTerm2 + ctrl-left/right use the following: bindkey -e; bindkey '\e\e[C' forward-word; bindkey '\e\e[D' backward-word

[Orlin Bobchev]

For some reason my OSX preferences were restored to defaults..

[marcantonio]

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]

Disregard. I just needed to start a new ssh session!

[Paschalis]

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.

[Julian A.]

@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 superuser.com/a/584175/83693)

[revacuate]

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]

This is definitely the safest and easiest solution.

[gerrytan]

The link code.google.com/p/iterm2/wiki/Keybindings is dead, do you know where is it relocated to?

[slhck]

@gerrytan You can still access it through the Wayback Archive.

[Philip]

This did it for me!

[DavidPostill]

This doesn't actually answer the question, which is about using <ctrl><left>

[Seralto]

All you have to do is use the shortcut that fits your need. "<ctrl><left>" or whatever you want.

[DavidPostill]

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.

[galuszkak]

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.

[vernonk]

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!

[MaylorTaylor]

all i have under that preset is "Factory Defaults"

[DrBeco]

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.

[Casimir]

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?

[Player1]

This should've improved the @rassom answer rather than providing a same answer with screenshot.

[Guillaume Petit]

Worked for me, but I needed to also disable misson control shortcuts that were having higher priority, once disabled that "Naturel Text Editing" worked