Visual Studio keyboard shortcuts
Building, debugging, editing, and tool windows in Microsoft's full IDE.
84 shortcuts Windows checked September 14, 2026
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This app has a Windows catalog in Shortivo. No other operating system is published for it yet.
- Visual Studio Documented
| Action | Keys | Row actions |
|---|---|---|
| Open a project or solution Anywhere | Windows CtrlShiftO | Source |
| Save every open file Anywhere | Windows CtrlShiftS | Source |
| Save the selected items Anywhere | Windows CtrlS | Source |
| View the page in a browser Web project | Windows CtrlShiftW | Source |
| Add an existing item to the project Project | Windows ShiftAltA | Source |
| Add a new item to the project Project | Windows CtrlShiftA | Source |
| Extract the selection into a method Text editor | Windows CtrlRCtrlM | Source |
| Attach the debugger to a process Anywhere | Windows CtrlAltP | Source |
| Open Class View Anywhere | Windows CtrlShiftC | Source |
| Open the error list Anywhere | Windows CtrlE | Source |
| Navigate back to the previous location Anywhere | Windows Ctrl- | Source |
| Navigate forward to the next location Anywhere | Windows CtrlShift- | Source |
| Open the object browser Anywhere | Windows CtrlAltJ | Source |
| Open the output window Anywhere | Windows CtrlAltO | Source |
| Open the properties window Anywhere | Windows F4 | Source |
| Open Server Explorer Anywhere | Windows CtrlAltS | Source |
| Show quick actions and fixes Text editor | Windows Ctrl. | Source |
| Open Solution Explorer Anywhere | Windows CtrlAltL | Source |
| Open the toolbox Anywhere | Windows CtrlAltX | Source |
| Return focus to the document Tool window focused | Windows Esc | Source |
| Close the document window Document open | Windows CtrlW | Source |
| Move to the next document window Several documents open | Windows CtrlF6 | Source |
| Switch documents with the navigator Several documents open | Windows CtrlTab | Source |
| Move to the next split pane Split editor | Windows F6 | Source |
About Visual Studio and its shortcuts
Visual Studio is the full Microsoft development environment, and its keyboard reflects a program with a very large surface: building, debugging, navigating a solution, refactoring and window management each have their own family of commands. The debugging commands are the ones that pay back fastest, since they are repeated dozens of times an hour.
Visual Studio ships several keyboard schemes and lets you switch between them, so the installed default is not universal. Installed workloads and extensions also add their own bindings, and Shortivo publishes the Windows list only.
Where the Visual Studio keys came from
Read from 1 documentation page published by the makers of Visual Studio. Report a key that is wrong
To see how one action is done in other apps as well as Visual Studio, browse the shortcuts by task. Shortcuts by task