Master the Essential Keyboard Shortcuts in Linux Mint to Feel Like a Pro User

Most people live on the mouse; click, move, repeat. It’s easy, especially on a polished desktop like Linux Mint. But once your fingers learn the shortcuts, the keyboard quietly wins every time.

Not only they give you a power user feel, they also make you more productive as you don't have to move the fingers away from the keyboard to grab the mouse.

Now, Linux Mint is one of the best distributions for beginner Linux users and you can comfortably use it with the mouse.

However, if you want to explore, Linux Mint supports plenty of keyboard shortcuts.

In this tutorial, I'll share some essential shortcuts to get you started, followed by some not so common ones. In the end, I will also briefly share how you can set custom shortcuts for all actions.

Using keyboard shortcuts on Linux Mint Cinnamon

Here's a quick look at the keybindings I am going to share in details:

Super Key: Open the start menu

This is a well known, probably the most used, shortcut. Press the Super key (key with Windows logo on most keyboards) and the Start menu opens instantly. From there, you can search for applications, open settings, or launch recently used programs.

Open a terminal or file manager

These two are most used by me since terminal and file manager are two essential tools in my workflow.

To open a terminal, you can use CTRl + ALT + T. Press it again and you open multiple windows.

In Linux Mint, Nemo is the default file manager, and you can open your home directory in Nemo using Super + E.

Close an application window

You do not need to click on the "X" button at the top! Without taking the hands away from the keyboard, you can use ALT + F4, where F4 is the Function key 4.

Show desktop instantly

When your screen is full of open windows and you need a clean view, press SUPER + D. Press it once to hide everything. Press it again to bring all windows back.

Show notifications

Lots of unread messages? Use the SUPER + N shortcut to open the notification section in the panel.

Switch between windows

If you multitask, this section is for you. To switch between open windows, use ALT + TAB.

If you have more than one window opened for an app, say terminal, use ALT + backtick to switch between them without pulling other windows to the view.

Use window tiling

The Cinnamon desktop of Linux Mint is not a tiling window manager that offers functions like automatic tiling, layouts, etc. But it does give you a set of basic window tiling options. Here are the shortcuts to manage the tiles:

Apart from this, if you press SUPER + LEFT/RIGHT and then press SUPER + UP, the window will be tiled on top-left or top-right corner.

Get applications overview

You can use the CTRL + ALT + DOWN shortcut to get an overview of all open windows,like what the GNOME Activities overview do.

Work with Workspaces

Workspaces are well supported in Linux Mint. By default, you get four workspaces. To get an overview of the workspaces, use CTRL + ALT + UP.

To switch to another workspace, use CTRL + ALT + Left/Right.

Lock the screen

When you take a break from the session, it is better to lock the system. And in Mint, do this by pressing CTRL + ALT + L.

Take screenshots

Linux Mint has a decent screenshot utility that offers the basic functionalities, like:

• Taking the screenshot of the screen using PrtScr key
• Taking the screenshot of a selected rectangular area using SHIFT+PrtScr.

It also offers a screen recording feature. To start recording, press CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+R. Once recording is finished, press the same shortcut to stop recording, and the file is saved automatically in the ~/Videos directory.

Run a console

If you want to run a quick command without opening the terminal, ALT + F2 is the shortcut. It opens a small dialog box. Enter the command you want and hit enter.

Session management shortcuts

No need to open the menu and look for power options. Linux Mint has some accessible shortcuts for these tasks:

Use CTRL + ALT + DEL to get the logout menu.

Or use CTRL + ALT + END to get the shutdown/reboot/suspend menu.

Add custom shortcuts in Linux Mint

You can always create custom keyboard shortcuts. For example, if you are using a tenkeyless keyboard from Keychron and you don't have the print screen button, you can create a custom keybinding to initiate the screenshot app.

There are more practical uses of custom shortcuts. For example, I use SUPER + Q to open the terminal. Also, I keep SUPER + SHIFT + D to open Discord. Let's see how you can create custom keyboard shortcuts.

First, open the Start menu with the SUPER key and search keyboard.

Inside the keyboard window, go to Shortcuts. Here, you can see a categorized list of options and respective keyboard shortcuts.

Change a shortcut

First, let's change an existing keybinding. For this, use the search bar and enter the one you want to change. If a default option for that is available, it will be shown. Like terminal in this case.

Select the action (Launch terminal) and then under Keyboard bindings, click on the unassigned option.

This will ask you to enter a keyboard shortcut. Press the shortcut of your choice. I will press SUPER + Q.

All this action is shown in the video clip below:

That's it. You can now open terminal with either CTRL + ALT + T or SUPER + Q.

Create a new keybinding

Now, let's see how to assign a keyboard shortcut to a new application.

In the same Keyboard -> Shortcuts section, select the Custom Shortcuts option in the left side bar.

Click on Add a custom shortcut button. In the new dialog box, enter a name for the shortcut and the command you want to execute.

In the above screenshot, you can see that in the command section, we used:

flatpak run com.discordapp.Discord

This is because it is a Flatpak application. If it is an application installed using system package manager like gedit or handbrake, you can add its name directly.

Once added, click on the Add button. In the settings, click on Unassigned and add a keybinding of your choice.

Download Linux Mint cheatsheet wallpaper

If you want, we have a 4K wallpaper for you. You can set it as desktop background and quickly look at the keyboard shortcuts. It will help you build your muscle memory.

The 4K resolution wallpaper can be downloaded from the Proton Drive link below:

Wrapping up

Now you are familiar with the common keyboard shortcuts in Linux Mint. You also learned to create custom keybindings.

This list is limited in the sense that there are shortcuts for each applications as well! For example, apps like Nemo File Manager offers its own set of custom keyboards. VS Code has plenty of shortcuts of its own and so does Firefox.

Of course, those don not count here. The shortcuts I discussed are primarily at desktop environment level. I hope you enjoy using them as much as I do.

By the way, we have a similar article that discusses essential keyboard shortcuts for Ubuntu, too.