Today’s article is going to be a bit more weird than usual… mostly because I’ve set to write about one topic, and ended up about writing something completely different in the end… Here we go!

TL;DR Many common macOS keybindings (e.g. Command-s, Command-z, Command-f, etc) work in Emacs. And, of course, it’s well known that macOS uses by default Emacs-like (readline) keybindings everywhere. (e.g. C-a and C-e)

I’m guessing 99% of Emacs users know that the most common ways to start isearch are with isearch-forward (C-s) and isearch-backward (C-r). That’s not the full story, though! While working on my recent isearch article I noticed that out-of-the-box there are two other keybindings for those commands:

  • s-f (isearch-forward)
  • s-F (isearch-backward)

Note: s in this context means Super, which is usually Win in Windows and Command in macOS.

When I saw those I was like “hmm, seems someone wanted to make Emacs a bit more approachable to macOS users coming other editors”. But here things got interesting…

I tried to find out where those extra keybindings were defined, and after a bit of digging I found them in the ns-win.el library1, which defines a ton of macOS-specific keybindings:

;; Here are some Nextstep-like bindings for command key sequences.
(define-key global-map [?\s-,] 'customize)
(define-key global-map [?\s-'] 'next-window-any-frame)
(define-key global-map [?\s-`] 'other-frame)
(define-key global-map [?\s-~] 'ns-prev-frame)
(define-key global-map [?\s--] 'center-line)
(define-key global-map [?\s-:] 'ispell)
(define-key global-map [?\s-?] 'info)
(define-key global-map [?\s-^] 'kill-some-buffers)
(define-key global-map [?\s-&] 'kill-current-buffer)
(define-key global-map [?\s-C] 'ns-popup-color-panel)
(define-key global-map [?\s-D] 'dired)
(define-key global-map [?\s-E] 'edit-abbrevs)
(define-key global-map [?\s-L] 'shell-command)
(define-key global-map [?\s-M] 'manual-entry)
(define-key global-map [?\s-S] 'ns-write-file-using-panel)
(define-key global-map [?\s-a] 'mark-whole-buffer)
(define-key global-map [?\s-c] 'ns-copy-including-secondary)
(define-key global-map [?\s-d] 'isearch-repeat-backward)
(define-key global-map [?\s-e] 'isearch-yank-kill)
(define-key global-map [?\s-f] 'isearch-forward)
(define-key esc-map [?\s-f] 'isearch-forward-regexp)
(define-key minibuffer-local-isearch-map [?\s-f]
  'isearch-forward-exit-minibuffer)
(define-key isearch-mode-map [?\s-f] 'isearch-repeat-forward)
(define-key global-map [?\s-F] 'isearch-backward)
(define-key esc-map [?\s-F] 'isearch-backward-regexp)
(define-key minibuffer-local-isearch-map [?\s-F]
  'isearch-reverse-exit-minibuffer)
(define-key isearch-mode-map [?\s-F] 'isearch-repeat-backward)
(define-key global-map [?\s-g] 'isearch-repeat-forward)
(define-key global-map [?\s-h] 'ns-do-hide-emacs)
(define-key global-map [?\s-H] 'ns-do-hide-others)
(define-key global-map [?\M-\s-h] 'ns-do-hide-others)
(define-key global-map [?\s-j] 'exchange-point-and-mark)
(define-key global-map [?\s-k] 'kill-current-buffer)
(define-key global-map [?\s-l] 'goto-line)
(define-key global-map [?\s-m] 'iconify-frame)
(define-key global-map [?\s-n] 'make-frame)
(define-key global-map [?\s-o] 'ns-open-file-using-panel)
(define-key global-map [?\s-p] 'ns-print-buffer)
(define-key global-map [?\s-q] 'save-buffers-kill-emacs)
(define-key global-map [?\s-s] 'save-buffer)
(define-key global-map [?\s-t] 'menu-set-font)
(define-key global-map [?\s-u] 'revert-buffer)
(define-key global-map [?\s-v] 'yank)
(define-key global-map [?\s-w] 'delete-frame)
(define-key global-map [?\s-x] 'kill-region)
(define-key global-map [?\s-y] 'ns-paste-secondary)
(define-key global-map [?\s-z] 'undo)
(define-key global-map [?\s-+] 'text-scale-adjust)
(define-key global-map [?\s-=] 'text-scale-adjust)
(define-key global-map [?\s--] 'text-scale-adjust)
(define-key global-map [?\s-0] 'text-scale-adjust)
(define-key global-map [?\s-|] 'shell-command-on-region)
(define-key global-map [s-kp-bar] 'shell-command-on-region)
(define-key global-map [?\C-\s- ] 'ns-do-show-character-palette)
(define-key global-map [s-right] 'move-end-of-line)
(define-key global-map [s-left] 'move-beginning-of-line)

(define-key global-map [home] 'beginning-of-buffer)
(define-key global-map [end] 'end-of-buffer)
(define-key global-map [kp-home] 'beginning-of-buffer)
(define-key global-map [kp-end] 'end-of-buffer)
(define-key global-map [kp-prior] 'scroll-down-command)
(define-key global-map [kp-next] 'scroll-up-command)

;; Allow shift-clicks to work similarly to under Nextstep.
(define-key global-map [S-mouse-1] 'mouse-save-then-kill)
(global-unset-key [S-down-mouse-1])

;; Special Nextstep-generated events are converted to function keys.  Here
;; are the bindings for them.  Note, these keys are actually declared in
;; x-setup-function-keys in common-win.
(define-key global-map [ns-power-off] 'save-buffers-kill-emacs)
(define-key global-map [ns-open-file] 'ns-find-file)
(define-key global-map [ns-open-temp-file] [ns-open-file])
(define-key global-map [ns-open-file-line] 'ns-open-file-select-line)
(define-key global-map [ns-spi-service-call] 'ns-spi-service-call)
(define-key global-map [ns-new-frame] 'make-frame)
(define-key global-map [ns-toggle-toolbar] 'ns-toggle-toolbar)
(define-key global-map [ns-show-prefs] '

Some of them look quite convenient (easy to press), so I might add a few to my daily work. I’m shocked I never trying any of the standard macOS keybindings for things like adjusting text size in Emacs. Or perhaps I tried them and then I forgot about them… :D

Still, even though I’m a macOS users (at least for the time being), I doubt I’ll end up using many of them. The reason for this is that I learned Emacs on Linux and I’m extremely used to the default keybindings. Between remembering all of those, and trying to master Vim (as of late), it’s hard to teach this old dog any new tricks. That being sad, I can imagine those keybindings being useful to many other people, especially if they haven’t learned Emacs on Linux 20 years ago.

Tip: Do a M-x find-library RET ns-win to see what else the library has in store for macOS users.

All of this is, of course, made possible by the fact that macOS relies heavily on the Command key which normally isn’t used in Emacs at all. For similar reasons it’s “easier” to copy/paste text from/in your shell on macOS, compared to Linux and Windows, as keybindings like Command + c and Command + v are not used by any shell.

That’s all I have for you today! Keep hacking!

P.S. After writing this article I was really amused that I’ve been using macOS on and off for over 10 years and I never bothered to try whether something like Command-s or Command-z works in Emacs! Oh, well… habits!

  1. Emacs stubbornly keeps refering to macOS by its ancient name NextStep in much of the code and its documentation. ↩