Never leave your keyboard - Shortcuts that actually make your life easier

Last updated: October 1, 2026

You're busy. We know. And the trip your hand keeps making from keyboard to mouse and back is a tiny tax you pay hundreds of times a day. Quire has a full set of shortcut keys so you can do most of what you need without ever reaching over.

There's real research behind this too, not just comfort. According to the Nielsen Norman Group, accelerators like keyboard shortcuts speed up the interaction for experienced users, which is why "flexibility and efficiency of use" is one of the ten classic usability heuristics. Shortcuts feel slower while you're learning them and then quietly make you faster forever after. Get your keyboard ready.

Which Quire keyboard shortcuts should you learn first?

If you only memorize five, make it these. They cover the motions you'll repeat all day.

Once those are muscle memory, the rest below stops feeling like a list to study and starts feeling like reach.

How do you build a task list with the keyboard?

First things first: you need tasks before you have a project. One note on notation: on a Mac, Quire now shows every modifier the way macOS itself does, as symbols. So the Mac column reads ⌘ for Command, ⌥ for Option, ⌃ for Control, and ⇧ for Shift, and the Windows column spells the keys out.

While you're typing a task name, Tab and ⇧ + Tab move it in and out a level, so you can sketch a whole outline without stopping to drag anything.

How do you add details and reorder tasks by keyboard?

Once the tasks exist, you'll want to give them detail and shuffle them into the right order. Single keys handle the common fields, the same shortcuts that let you type it while you think it instead of stopping to click around.

And to move tasks around or copy them:

How do you move around the board and workspace?

The keyboard doesn't stop at the list. You can drive the Kanban Board and hop around the workspace too.

The zoom shortcuts here are the newest of the bunch: zooming out of a focused task was recently rebound to Shift + Esc, and it now behaves the same on every platform.

To add description, comment, or mention people:

And to move through the panels and the filter bar:

And for the panels, views and searches you'd otherwise go hunting for with the mouse:

Ready to ditch the mouse?

Pick three shortcuts from the "learn first" table and use only those for one work session. Don't try to memorize the whole sheet at once; that's the fast way to use none of them. Add a new one each day and within a week your hands stop wandering.

If you want the complete reference, here's the cheat sheet 😆. Shortcuts are just one layer of what Quire can do, so take a look at 20 hidden Quire features you should know next. Stay tuned for more on Quire.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you add tasks and subtasks with the keyboard?

Press Enter for a task and Shift+Enter for a subtask. Tab and Shift+Tab indent and un-indent while you type, and Esc finishes.

What shortcuts add details to a task?

Single keys: < for a due date, @ for an assignee, # for a tag, ! for priority, ? for status, d for description, c to comment.

Can you manage the Kanban Board with the keyboard?

Yes. Move cards within a column with Alt + up/down and across columns with Alt + left/right (Ctrl on Windows).

Where is the full shortcut list?

Press F1 (Fn+F1 on Mac), or open Keyboard Shortcuts under the Help icon. The full cheat sheet is in the Quire guide.

Are shortcuts available on every plan?

Yes. They're part of core Quire on every plan including free, with nothing to enable.