Custom Keyboard Shortcuts in elementary OS for Faster App Launching
Australians who use elementary OS often juggle multiple tools throughout the day, whether they are working from a home office in Adelaide, attending video calls from a co-working space in Brisbane, or handling side projects after hours in Perth. Reaching for the mouse every time you need to open the same application slows everything down, especially when you are switching between a browser, a terminal, a music player, and a code editor. A well-planned keyboard shortcut removes that friction and makes the Pantheon desktop feel like a tool shaped specifically for how you actually work.
The release of elementary OS 8 brought a refreshed system tray, better multitouch gestures, and a more responsive Settings panel, but the developers have not changed the underlying mechanism for binding keys to actions. If you have just installed the operating system for the first time and want to set up a productive environment from day one, the elementary OS 8 step-by-step beginner walkthrough gives a useful overview of the basics before you start customising shortcuts.
Australians spend more time on their computers than the global average, according to recent digital wellbeing reports, so shaving a few seconds off each app start really does add up across a working week. Whether you are a freelancer in Melbourne who bills by the hour or a hobbyist tinkerer in Hobart experimenting with a side project, mapping your most-used apps to a single key combo turns the desktop into something that responds the way you think. This guide walks through every practical method for doing exactly that, from the simplest GUI route to a slightly more advanced approach using dconf and gsettings.
Exploring elementary OS's Keyboard Settings
The Pantheon desktop does not expose every shortcut through a single glossy panel, but the System Settings app still covers most everyday needs. Open System Settings from the Applications menu, then choose the Keyboard section. You will see a layout preview at the top and several tabs along the side, including Shortcuts, which is where the built-in bindings for screenshots, workspaces, and media keys already live. Clicking any existing shortcut allows you to override it, which is handy when a default combination clashes with something you use elsewhere.
The Shortcuts tab is split into two columns: System, which contains actions defined by elementary OS, and Custom, which is initially empty. Custom shortcuts are the ones you will add for launching your favourite applications. A small plus button at the bottom of the Custom column opens a dialog box asking for a name, a command, and a key combination. The name is purely for your own reference, so pick something that makes sense to you, such as "Launch Thunderbird" or "Open Terminal".
When typing the command, you can use the same path you would run from a terminal. For example, firefox opens Firefox, code launches Visual Studio Code if it is installed through the AppCenter, and pantheon-terminal starts the default terminal. If you prefer the app's graphical launcher path instead, you can paste the absolute path of a .desktop file or use the gtk-launch command followed by the application's identifier, like gtk-launch code. Either approach works, and which one you choose mostly depends on whether you want the shortcut to behave exactly like clicking the icon in the Applications menu or to start the binary directly.
Preparing Your Workspace Before Binding Keys
Before adding any custom shortcut, it pays to spend a few minutes looking at what is already bound. elementary OS reserves a number of key combinations for system actions, and accidentally remapping one of them can produce confusing behaviour later. The Super key on its own opens the Applications menu, Super + T toggles the terminal, and Super + Left or Right arrows move windows between workspaces. Holding Super and pressing D minimises everything to show the desktop. Knowing these defaults helps you pick combinations that do not collide.
Australians who use a US layout often forget that the layout itself affects which keys are easiest to reach. If you have swapped to an Australian English keyboard layout to make typing more comfortable while emailing clients in Sydney, the position of the backslash, tilde, and hash keys moves slightly. That small shift is worth keeping in mind when choosing modifiers, because a shortcut that feels natural on a US board might require an awkward finger stretch on an ANSI-AU layout.
It is also worth thinking about which applications you really want at your fingertips. Audacious music player, Element chat, and Geary mail client are all common choices among the elementary OS crowd. If you are a developer in Melbourne who splits time between IntelliJ and a browser running local documentation, the obvious pairings are IntelliJ, the terminal, and your browser. If you are a writer who drafts in Apostrophe, you may only need one custom shortcut, leaving the rest for future expansion. Planning the list first saves you from ending up with a cluttered keyboard map that is hard to remember.
Creating the Shortcut Through the GUI
Once your workspace is mapped out, creating a shortcut through the graphical interface is the easiest path for beginners. In the Keyboard Settings panel, switch to the Custom tab and press the plus button. Give the shortcut a memorable name, type the command for the application, and then click the key binding field. A dialog invites you to press the combination you want to use, and the system registers it immediately.
For example, you could bind Ctrl + Alt + M to open the terminal, Ctrl + Alt + B for Firefox, and Ctrl + Alt + T for Visual Studio Code. Each entry appears in the Custom list with the chosen combination on the right-hand side. You can edit or delete any entry later by selecting it and using the buttons that appear in the bottom-right corner. Changes are saved automatically as soon as you close the dialog, so there is no separate Save button to hunt for.
This GUI route is enough for the vast majority of users. It supports any combination of Ctrl, Shift, Super, Alt, and a regular key, including function keys. The catch is that the interface does not give you access to every possible key, and some less common combinations, such as bindings involving the menu key or specific multimedia buttons, may not register. For those edge cases, you will need to drop into the command line and edit configuration directly.
Advanced Bindings with dconf and gsettings
For users who want finer control, elementary OS exposes the same shortcut database through dconf and gsettings. The relevant schema is org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys, and the custom shortcuts live under org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys.custom-keybindings. Each entry is referenced by a numbered path such as /org/gnome/settings-daemon/plugins/media-keys/custom-keybindings/custom0/.
Adding a binding from the terminal involves a small script that calls gsettings set followed by the schema path, the key, and the value. A common pattern looks like the following three lines: gsettings set ... name 'Launch Terminal', gsettings set ... command 'pantheon-terminal', and gsettings set ... binding '<Primary><Alt>t'. The binding string uses angle-bracket notation for modifiers, with Primary standing in for Ctrl, Alt for Alt, Super for the Super key, and Shift for Shift. The final character is the regular key.
To register the new entry with the array that the system actually reads, you append the custom path to the custom-keybindings list using gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys custom-keybindings followed by the bracketed path. This approach lets you script the entire setup, which is handy for Australian sysadmins who manage multiple machines across regional offices. Drop the script into a configuration management tool like Ansible, and every laptop in the fleet ends up with the same bindings, no matter whether it sits on a desk in Darwin or travels with a sales rep around the country. It also makes it trivial to back up your keyboard map by exporting the relevant schemas and reapplying them on a fresh install.
Troubleshooting Common Problems
Even with a clean setup, shortcuts occasionally misbehave. The most common issue is a shortcut that does nothing at all, which usually means the command is wrong or the application is not in your $PATH. Open a terminal and run the same command manually to confirm it launches the program. If it fails there, fix the command first; the shortcut will only ever do what the command does.
Another frequent problem is a binding that fires but the wrong window comes to the front. This is especially noticeable with applications that launch as background services, such as Slack or Telegram. The fix is usually to pass the --existing flag or to use a wrapper script that calls wmctrl to raise the window. Some users in Australian tech meetups have shared small scripts that focus the application if it is already running and only start it if it is not, giving you a true toggle rather than a one-shot launch.
If a shortcut refuses to register at all, check that another tool is not grabbing the combination first. iBus, fcitx, and certain clipboard managers sit between the system and your applications and can intercept keys. Disabling the offending tool temporarily will tell you whether it is the culprit. Finally, remember that elementary OS treats some media keys as reserved for the OEM, so combinations involving the brightness or volume keys may be ignored unless the laptop's firmware supports remapping them. Restarting the session after every change also helps, because the settings daemon does not always pick up new bindings without a fresh login.
Australians who work from cafes around Melbourne's laneways or commute on Sydney's heavy rail will appreciate that a single Super plus key combination can launch an app far more reliably than juggling trackpad gestures on a crowded train. Once your shortcuts are dialled in, you can keep the dock uncluttered, hide rarely used app icons, and rely on muscle memory to reach everything you need. The Pantheon desktop rewards this kind of thoughtful configuration, and the few minutes spent setting up bindings tend to pay back many times over the course of a working week. Backing up the schema values once you are happy with your layout gives you a quick restore path on the next clean install, keeping your personal shortcut map consistent across machines for years to come.
