Midnight Commander Cheat Sheet / Shortcuts

MC Cheat Sheet

Shortcut                  Description
---------------------------------------------------------------

C-o                       Drop to the console
Insert                    Select/deselect file
C-t                       Alias for Insert
*                         Invert selection on files
+                         Specify file selection options (including custom pattern)
-                         The same as above, but for deselecting
F5/F6                     Copy/move selected files

A-s                       Incremental search (A-s again to jump to next occurence)
A-.                       Toggle "Show Hidden Files" feature
A-Enter                   Put name of the highlighted file on command line
C-r                       Refresh current pane

TAB                       Jump from one panel to the other
A-i                       Make the other panel show the same directory as the current
C-u                       Swap panels

A-c                       Quick cd dialog
A-?                       Search dialog
A-h                       Show history

C-x c                     Chmod dialog
C-x o                     Chown dialog
C-x s                     Create symlink dialog
C-x l                     Create hard link dialog
C-x d                     Compare directories


F2 @ unzip                Unzip selected file
F2 @ zip -r foo.zip       Zip current directory as foo.zip

F2 @ 7za x                Extract selected file with 7zip
F2 @ 7za a foo.7z         7zip current directory as foo.7z

An alias for "Insert" is C-t. You might want to add it :)

@daviderestivo thanks for the suggestion! Just added it.

you may also want to add F9 to select the top menu. :-)

@jaepetto done. Thanks!

You might want to add "Ctrl-X A" to list Active VFS connections.

@MarkSetchell added to the list. Thanks for the suggestion.

"ESC" "ESC" - double escape to dismiss menus/popups

@dagolinuxoid thanks, added to the list

being annoyed by the GNOME-Terminal stealing F10 (close mc), I tried typing exit => seemingly works
This could help newcomers in the same situation

edit: Actually, just found how to deactivate this: Preferences => General
so maybe not that relevant still

editedit: This almost the same for the default terminal in XFCE (xubuntu in my case)

Thanks for the list!

Shift - F6 renames current item in place.

"ESC" "ESC" - double escape to dismiss menus/popups

In menu (F9) -> Options -> Configuration..., toggling Esc key mode to "Single press" enabled, makes it so that only a single Esc is needed, better than needing to press Esc twice every time.

Thanks @edrozenberg , gist updated

I only wish F2 is a template to put file name in the middle of command, but MC always append it to tail of command

If anyone is interested I converted this text file to PDF ready to be printed :)

https://github.com/derxe/pdf_mc_cheatsheet/blob/main/mc_cheatsheet.pdf

An alias for "Insert" is C-t. You might want to add it :)

does not work for me using WSL Ubuntu-on W11 - instead right mouse click works - still searching to select *.png or clicking start and end of the list,

"F2-@" this is a wrong notation, should be "F2 @".

Thank you for this! That 7z extraction is gonna be handy right inside the app.

Is there a synonym for A-Enter? This action is used all the time. This combination is stealt by Windows Terminal (it toggles full-screen).

For the time being I'm usinx 'C-x t' but it's far from ideal (3 key presses instead of 2 and it puts many marked files instead of the actively selected one)

Edit: I could actually circumvent this issue using 'Esc' instead of 'Alt'. Weird but it just works.

Maybe this could be also added to line 6 "...on Macbooks, Windows Terminal or when Alt- shortcuts are already globally taken by the OS or other programs."

Edit 2: The 'Esc' replacement for 'Alt' doesn't work with 'C-Shift-Esc' as an alternative to 'C-Shift-Enter' for copying full path to selected file. It just opens TaskMannager.

@Helix751 does C-enter work?

If not you can remap the keys in midnight commander by editing the keymap file. Not sure where this file is on Windows but in WSL it should be under /etc/mc.

You can also change the Windows Terminal shortcut for going fullscreen:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/terminal/customize-settings/actions#toggle-full-screen