Keyboard Shortcuts

BetterStickies has two types of shortcuts: in-app shortcuts that work while you're using the app, and global shortcuts that work from anywhere on your system. Both are fully customizable.

In-App Shortcuts

These work when BetterStickies is focused.

Text Formatting

Content

Pages

Next and previous wrap around at either end, and do nothing on a note with only one page. See Note Tabs.

Find in a Note

Find searches the page you are on and ignores case. It finds text in code blocks and the names of file shortcuts and sound clips, but not link addresses or image names. It shows up to 500 matches (more show as "500+"), and moving past the last one goes back to the first. Find changes nothing in the note, so it works on locked notes too. The bar stays open while you click and type in the note, and closes when you hide, collapse or delete the note. If one of your own shortcuts uses F3 or Ctrl+G, your shortcut keeps the key.

Hub

Other Useful Shortcuts

Tab and Shift+Tab always work on list lines, whatever you do with the list shortcuts above. Choosing another list type, text color or highlight color, or Default color / No highlight, is done with the mouse in the choosers of the footer's list and color buttons and of the selection toolbar's highlight button; the shortcuts repeat your last choice.

Ctrl+Mouse Wheel doesn't resize text on a locked note, since locked notes are read-only. Unlock it first.

On a Mac

On a Mac, Ctrl in the tables above means the ⌘ Command key: Bold is ⌘B, Hide Note is ⌘W, and so on. A few shortcuts follow Mac conventions instead, matching Apple Notes and Safari:

The Mac's own text and window keys work too: ⌘⌫ deletes back to the start of the line (on a checkbox line it clears the text and keeps the box), ⌘, opens Settings, and ⌘W closes Search, Help, Settings and the app's other windows (in a note it hides the note). With a note's find bar open, ⌘G / ⇧⌘G move to the next / previous match.

The menu bar has the usual Mac menus: Edit (Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Select All, plus the Mac's own Emoji & Symbols and Start Dictation), Window (Minimize sends the hub to the Dock, or folds the note you are in down to its header like ⌘M; Bring All to Front brings your notes on screen and the hub in front of other apps) and Help (opens Better Stickies Help, and its search box finds any menu command).

The settings dialogs show every shortcut with Mac symbols (⌘ Command, ⌥ Option, ⌃ Control, ⇧ Shift).

Global Shortcuts

These work even when BetterStickies is in the background. No need to switch to it first.

On a Mac the defaults use Control+Option instead: ⌃⌥N, ⌃⌥S, ⌃⌥H and ⌃⌥V. (⌥⌘H is the system's Hide Others.)

Platform Notes

• Windows: Global shortcuts work out of the box, and you can change them in the app
• Linux: You'll need to set up shortcuts in your desktop environment's settings. See Global Shortcuts on Linux for a step-by-step guide, or click Configure Global Shortcuts… in Menu > Settings… > General for a quick start
• macOS: Global shortcuts work out of the box, and you can change them in the app. No Accessibility or Input Monitoring permission is needed. Letter shortcuts follow your keyboard layout, so ⌃⌥A is the key labelled A on a French or German keyboard too

Customizing Shortcuts

You can change any shortcut to a key combination you prefer.

Changing In-App Shortcuts

1. Open Menu > Settings… from the hub
2. On the General tab, click Configure In-App Shortcuts… in the Keyboard Shortcuts section
3. Find the shortcut you want to change
4. Click the key field and press your new combination
5. Click Save

Each shortcut has a switch at the end of its row. Turn it off to disable that shortcut without removing it.

Use Clear next to any shortcut to remove the key assignment. Use Reset to Defaults to go back to the original shortcuts.

Changing Global Shortcuts

1. Open Menu > Settings… from the hub
2. On the General tab, click Configure Global Shortcuts… in the Keyboard Shortcuts section
3. On Windows and macOS: change the key combinations directly. On Linux: use the dialog as a reference and configure the shortcuts in your desktop environment's settings

Changes take effect immediately. No restart needed. (If system-wide shortcuts couldn't start at all this session, the dialog says so: your change is saved and applies next time you open the app.)

Which Keys You Can Use

Global shortcuts accept letters, numbers, F1–F24, Space, Tab, Enter, Escape, Backspace, the arrow keys, Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, Insert, Delete, Pause, and Print Screen: always with Ctrl, Alt, Shift, or the Windows key. A plain N would be captured across your whole system and stop reaching every other app, so it's refused.

On a Mac the modifiers are ⌘, ⌥, ⌃ and ⇧, the function keys go up to F20, and Insert, Pause and Print Screen aren't accepted (Mac keyboards don't have them).

Punctuation keys aren't accepted either: which physical key a comma or a slash sits on depends on your keyboard layout, so binding one could capture a key you didn't press.

If a Shortcut Doesn't Work

The Global Shortcuts dialog tells you what went wrong, right next to the shortcut, both when you save and when you reopen it. The usual messages:

On a Mac, the system can't tell BetterStickies when another app already uses the same combination: the shortcut saves normally but may not reach BetterStickies. If one never fires, pick another combination. The dialog does warn you about the Mac's own shortcuts (such as ⌘Space for Spotlight) before you save.

If you'd rather undo a change that didn't work out, Cancel puts back the shortcuts you had when you opened the dialog.

Keyboards With an AltGr Key (Windows)

On many European keyboard layouts the right Alt key (AltGr) types extra characters, and Windows treats it as Ctrl+Alt. So while BetterStickies runs, its default global shortcuts also catch AltGr plus the same letter, in every app:

To get your characters back, open Menu > Settings…, click Configure Global Shortcuts… on the General tab, and turn those shortcuts off, or give them a combination your layout doesn't use for a character. If the dialog shows an accented letter when you press a combination (it shows Ctrl+Alt+Ś for Ctrl+Alt+S), that key types a character on your layout: pick another.

Also worth knowing:

• Holding a shortcut down triggers it once, not over and over
• On Linux, global shortcuts need to be configured in your desktop environment's shortcut settings: BetterStickies will show you how
• Some key combinations are reserved by your operating system and can't be overridden

See Also

• Getting Started: overview of the app and basic usage
• Global Shortcuts on Linux: set up system-wide shortcuts on KDE, GNOME, and other desktops
• Search Notes: use Ctrl+Alt+S to find notes quickly
• Reminders: use Ctrl+R to set reminders
• Languages: switch the app's language