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Shortcut Guide utility

The PowerToys Shortcut Guide is a searchable reference for keyboard shortcuts. It ships with built-in manifests for Windows, PowerToys, and many popular apps. When you open Shortcut Guide, it automatically shows shortcuts for the app currently in the foreground, plus PowerToys and any other background apps that have a matching manifest.

Screenshot of the PowerToys Shortcut Guide.

Get started

Press ⊞ Win+Shift+? (the default activation shortcut) to open Shortcut Guide. Press the shortcut again, press Esc, or select the close button to dismiss it.

Shortcut Guide opens as a regular window that you can read alongside the app you were using. The left sidebar lists the apps that are currently active (foreground app, plus matched background apps); selecting an app shows its shortcuts grouped into categories such as File, Edit, View, and so on. Recommended shortcuts for each app are highlighted at the top.

Important

PowerToys must be running and Shortcut Guide must be enabled in the PowerToys Settings for the activation shortcut to work.

Pin shortcuts

You can pin individual shortcuts you use most often. Pinned shortcuts appear at the top of an app's shortcut list so you can find them quickly the next time you open Shortcut Guide.

Supported apps

Shortcut Guide ships with the following built-in manifests. The exact set may change between PowerToys releases. For the current canonical list (including any apps added after this article was last updated), see the Manifests folder in the PowerToys repository.

Category Apps
Windows Windows shell (desktop and global shortcuts), File Explorer, Notepad, Paint
PowerToys PowerToys (always shown as a background match)
Microsoft 365 Access, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, Project, Publisher, Visio, Word
Browsers Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox
Communication Microsoft Teams, Slack, Discord, Telegram Desktop
Developer tools Visual Studio Code, Windows Terminal, IntelliJ IDEA (Community)
Creative Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe After Effects, Figma, GIMP, Inkscape, Blender

Tip

Don't see an app you use? You can open a feature request on the PowerToys repository asking for a built-in manifest. Please include the app name and a link to the app's official keyboard shortcut documentation so the manifest can be authored accurately. If you'd rather not wait, you can add the shortcuts yourself with a user manifest.

Add shortcuts for your own apps

Shortcut Guide reads its built-in manifests from the install folder, but it also picks up user-defined manifests from:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\WinGet\KeyboardShortcuts

Drop a YAML file in that folder to add shortcuts for an app that isn't covered by the built-ins. Each manifest declares the app name, the window or process filter used to detect when the app is in focus, and a list of shortcuts grouped by section. For example, a minimal manifest for Notepad looks like this:

PackageName: +WindowsNT.Notepad
Name: Notepad
WindowFilter: "Notepad.exe"
BackgroundProcess: false
Shortcuts:
  - SectionName: File
    Properties:
      - Name: New tab
        Recommended: true
        Shortcut:
          - Win: false
            Ctrl: true
            Shift: false
            Alt: false
            Keys:
              - N
      - Name: Save
        Shortcut:
          - Win: false
            Ctrl: true
            Shift: false
            Alt: false
            Keys:
              - S

Set BackgroundProcess: true to show the app's shortcuts whenever the process is running (used, for example, for PowerToys itself, so PowerToys shortcuts are always available in the guide). For more examples, browse the built-in manifests in the PowerToys source.

Settings

Configure Shortcut Guide from the PowerToys Settings page:

Setting Description
Enable Shortcut Guide Turn the utility on or off.
Activation shortcut The customizable keyboard shortcut to open Shortcut Guide. The default is ⊞ Win+Shift+?.
App theme Light, Dark, or Windows default.
Window position Pick which side of the screen Shortcut Guide opens on: Left or Right.
Exclude apps Turns off Shortcut Guide when one of these apps has focus. Add one app name per line (for example, outlook.exe).

Install PowerToys

This utility is part of the Microsoft PowerToys utilities for power users. It provides a set of useful utilities to tune and streamline your Windows experience for greater productivity. To install PowerToys, see Installing PowerToys.

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