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Keyboard shortcuts

title: "PAI Keyboard Shortcuts — Complete Reference for Sway and Waybar" description: "Every keyboard shortcut in PAI: app launches, window management, workspaces, screenshots, media, shutdown. Organized for quick lookup." sidebar: label: "Keyboard shortcuts" order: 1 tableOfContents: minHeadingLevel: 2 maxHeadingLevel: 3 head: - tag: meta attrs: property: "og:description" content: "Every keyboard shortcut in PAI: app launches, window management, workspaces, screenshots, media, shutdown. Organized for quick lookup." - tag: meta attrs: name: "keywords" content: "PAI keyboard shortcuts", "Sway keyboard reference", "PAI hotkeys", "bootable Linux shortcuts"

Full reference of every keyboard shortcut in PAI — bookmarkable, skimmable, no tutorials. For a guided tour of the desktop, see Desktop Basics.

The modifier key throughout is Alt (set as Mod1 in the Sway config at /etc/skel/.config/sway/config).

At-a-glance — the 10 shortcuts you'll use daily

Shortcut Action
Alt+Return Open terminal
Alt+D App launcher (all installed apps)
Alt+S PAI settings menu
Alt+B Firefox → Open WebUI
Alt+E File manager
Alt+F4 Close window
Alt+Arrow Switch focus between windows
Alt+1/2/3 Switch workspaces
Alt+Shift+E Shutdown menu
Print Screenshot

Apps and launcher

Shortcut Action
Alt+Return Open foot terminal
Alt+D Wofi app launcher (fuzzy search all installed apps)
Alt+S PAI settings menu
Alt+B Firefox to Open WebUI
Alt+E Thunar file manager
Alt+P Drawing image editor
Alt+Shift+B Electrum Bitcoin wallet (Crypto and Full profiles)
Alt+Shift+P Firefox to phantom.app (Crypto and Full profiles)
Alt+Shift+F Firefox to pump.fun (Crypto and Full profiles)
Alt+Shift+T Tor Browser (Privacy and Full profiles)
Alt+Shift+G Aisleriot solitaire (Full profile only)
Alt+Shift+M Feather Wallet (Crypto profile only — requires external install)

Profile-dependent shortcuts

Shortcuts in the second half of the table depend on which profile PAI booted into. The default is full, which enables all of them. See Boot Options for how to choose a different profile.

Window management

Focus

Shortcut Action
Alt+Left Focus window to the left
Alt+Right Focus window to the right
Alt+Up Focus window above
Alt+Down Focus window below

Move windows

Shortcut Action
Alt+Shift+Left Move window to the left
Alt+Shift+Right Move window to the right
Alt+Shift+Up Move window up
Alt+Shift+Down Move window down

Close

Shortcut Action
Alt+F4 Close focused window

Resize

Shortcut Action
Alt+R Enter resize mode

In resize mode: | Shortcut | Action | |---|---| | Left | Shrink width by 10px | | Right | Grow width by 10px | | Up | Shrink height by 10px | | Down | Grow height by 10px | | Return or Escape | Exit resize mode |

Workspaces

Shortcut Action
Alt+1 Switch to workspace 1
Alt+2 Switch to workspace 2
Alt+3 Switch to workspace 3
Alt+Shift+1 Move focused window to workspace 1
Alt+Shift+2 Move focused window to workspace 2
Alt+Shift+3 Move focused window to workspace 3

Three workspaces are defined by default. Typical usage: workspace 1 for browser/Open WebUI, 2 for terminal, 3 for files/notes.

Screenshots

Shortcut Action
Print Full-screen screenshot → ~/Pictures/screenshot-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.png
Shift+Print Region screenshot (click and drag to select)

Screenshots use grim (full-screen) and grim -g "$(slurp)" (region). Results go to the Pictures folder. On a live system without persistence, they're RAM-only and lost at shutdown — save to an external drive if you need to keep them.

System

Shortcut Action
Alt+L Lock screen (swaylock, black screen, password to unlock)
Alt+Shift+E Shutdown menu (pai-shutdown)
XF86PowerOff Shutdown menu (hardware power button)

See Shutting Down for the shutdown menu options, including memory wipe.

Media and volume

These work on keyboards with media keys (most modern laptops) via XF86 key codes.

Shortcut Action
XF86AudioPlay Play/pause (via playerctl)
XF86AudioNext Next track
XF86AudioPrev Previous track
XF86AudioRaiseVolume Volume up 5%
XF86AudioLowerVolume Volume down 5%
XF86AudioMute Mute toggle

Brightness (laptops)

Shortcut Action
XF86MonBrightnessUp Brightness up 5%
XF86MonBrightnessDown Brightness down 5%

Uses brightnessctl. If your laptop's brightness keys don't work, it's usually a driver / kernel module issue, not a PAI configuration issue.

Wofi shortcuts (inside the launcher)

Shortcut Action
Type to filter Fuzzy search installed apps
Up/Down or Tab Navigate
Return Launch selected
Escape Close without launching

Terminal (foot) shortcuts

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+Shift+C Copy
Ctrl+Shift+V Paste
Ctrl+Shift+N New terminal window
Ctrl+Shift+U Unicode input
Ctrl+Shift++ / Ctrl+Shift+- Increase / decrease font size
Ctrl+Shift+0 Reset font size

Firefox shortcuts (standard)

Firefox uses its default Firefox shortcuts. Non-exhaustive highlights:

Shortcut Action
Ctrl+T New tab
Ctrl+W Close tab
Ctrl+Shift+T Reopen closed tab
Ctrl+L Focus address bar
Ctrl+Shift+P Private browsing window
F11 Fullscreen toggle

Note: Firefox's Ctrl+Shift+T shortcut conflicts with the Sway Alt+Shift+T for Tor Browser launch. Sway's keybinding fires first because it uses Alt, so there's no actual conflict.

Customizing shortcuts

PAI's Sway config lives at /etc/skel/.config/sway/config. On a live system, changes require rebuilding the ISO to persist — see Building from Source.

Alternative: with persistence enabled (v0.2+), you can override specific bindings in ~/.config/sway/config without rebuilding.

What you cannot do with keyboard alone

Some actions still require mouse or terminal: - Right-click in Thunar - Dragging files between windows - Sizing the terminal to exact pixel dimensions

This is a normal tradeoff in tiling window managers — they optimize for keyboard-driven workflows.