Linux Mint: How to Create New Custom Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are actions that can be performed by pressing a key combination. They can help save you the time of searching through menus to find the option you want and help keep you closer to your task by streamlining your workflow.

In Linux Mint, there is a range of pre-configured shortcut actions, some of which have a default key combination to activate them and some of which have no default binding. You can set your own key combinations for any pre-existing shortcuts or create your own custom shortcuts and key combinations.

How to Make Your Own Keyboard Shortcuts

To do so, you need to open the keyboard settings by pressing the Super key, then typing “Keyboard,” and hitting enter.

Tip: The “Super” key is the name that many Linux distributions use to refer to the Windows key or the Apple “Command” key while avoiding any risk of trademark issues.

Replace Already Existing Keyboard Shortcuts

Once you’re in the keyboard menu, switch to the “Shortcuts” tab. There you can configure a new key combination from an existing shortcut by selecting the category and subcategory from the left column, the shortcut in the “Keyboard shortcuts” box, then clicking on “unassigned” at the bottom. Hence, it says, “Pick an accelerator,” and press your key combination.

To add a custom keyboard shortcut, click “Add custom shortcut” at the bottom. In the “Name” box, enter the title for your shortcut. Next, enter the command you want to run in the “Command” box. Alternatively, if you want the shortcut to run or open a file, click “(None)” with the folder icon to browse through your computer for the file you want to use. Once you’re happy with the command in the “Command” box, click “Add” to save the shortcut.

Tip: For complex commands, it may be better to save the command to a shell script in your directory and to then set the shortcut to just run the script.

Once you’ve created your shortcut, click on the “Custom Shortcuts” section in the left-hand column, then select the shortcut in the “Keyboard shortcuts” box. To add a key binding, click on “unassigned” in the “Keyboard bindings” box, so it says “Pick an accelerator,” and press your key combination.