Customizing Jupyter Lab Shortcuts

Notebooks are a popular tool among data scientists - many data professionals write all their Python code in notebooks.

Jupyter Lab is a web application used by data scientists to run Jupyter Notebooks.

This article shows how to customize shortcuts in Jupyter Lab and gives you a starter template for useful shortcuts.

We will setup custom shortcuts for:

restarting the iPython kernel,
running all cells above this cell,
opening a terminal,
moving between tabs.

Why Customize Shortcuts?

The default shortcuts in Jupyter Lab are good (take a look at our Jupyter Lab guide for a list of the most important default shortcuts), but there are a few parts of the data science workflow that the default shortcuts don’t cover.

Adding just a few custom shortcuts will lead to an increase in the speed & accuracy of your workflow.

How to Customize Shortcuts in Jupyter Lab

You can access the Keyboard Shortcuts menu using:

Menu Bar -> Settings
Settings -> Advanced Settings Editor
Advanced Settings Editor -> Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard Shortcuts -> User Preferences

If you haven’t edited your Jupyter Lab shortcuts before, you’ll have nothing in the User Preferences section.

There are a few strategies for setting up User Preferences:

copy all the System Defaults into User Preferences, and then modify the shortcuts you want to change
only put the shortcuts we want to change into User Preferences, which is what we will do in this article

Either way, you’ll benefit from having a copy of System Defaults open in a text editor, for easier searching (the Jupyter Lab search can leave a little wanting :).

Restarting the Kernel & Running All Cells Above

The most important custom shortcuts are those that make restarting the kernel quicker. Its something you do a lot when using notebooks.

Which shortcut is best for you depends on how you like to restart the kernel - we use Restart Kernel & Run All the most. The full shortcuts we use for managing the kernel are:

restart & run all -> F6,
restart & clear -> F7,
run all above -> F8.

Copying the JSON below directly into your User Preferences will give you these three custom shortcuts:

{
    "shortcuts": [
        {
            "command": "runmenu:restart-and-run-all",
            "keys": [
                "F6"
            ],
            "selector": "[data-jp-code-runner]"
        },
        {
            "command": "kernelmenu:restart-and-clear",
            "keys": [
                "F7"
            ],
            "selector": "[data-jp-kernel-user]:focus"
        },
        {
            "command": "kernelmenu:run-all-above",
            "keys": [
                "F8"
            ],
            "selector": "[data-jp-kernel-user]:focus"
        }
    ]
}

You’ll notice that we don’t use F5 - because this is often used as a Refresh Page shortcut in browsers.

Open a Terminal

A good option here is Alt T (like on Ubuntu).

A common workflow for with this shortcut is:

Alt T to open a terminal,
do some work,
Alt ArrowUp to switch back and forth with previous tab (usually a notebook),
Ctrl W to close the terminal window.

Alt ArrowUp is a custom shortcut as well - see the Move between tabs section below.

{
    "shortcuts": [
        {
            "command": "terminal:open",
            "keys": [
                "Alt T"
            ],
            "selector": "body"
        }
    ]
}

Move Between Tabs

The final shortcuts are to make moving around between open tabs using Alt + arrow keys:

Alt ArrowUp -> previously used,
Alt ArrowLeft -> previous tab,
Alt ArrowRight -> next tab.

{
    "shortcuts": [
        {
            "command": "tabsmenu:activate-previously-used-tab",
            "keys": [
                "Alt ArrowUp"
            ],
            "selector": "body"
        },
        {
            "command": "application:activate-previous-tab",
            "keys": [
                "Alt ArrowLeft"
            ],
            "selector": "body"
        },
        {
            "command": "application:activate-next-tab",
            "keys": [
                "Alt ArrowRight"
            ],
            "selector": "body"
        }
    ]
}

Full Custom Shortcuts JSON

Below is a copy of the full JSON we use to customize our shortcuts - you can copy this directly into User Preferences:

{
    "shortcuts": [
        {
            "command": "sidebar:toggle",
            "keys": [
                "F9"
            ],
            "selector": ".jp-SideBar"
        },
        {
            "command": "runmenu:restart-and-run-all",
            "keys": [
                "F6"
            ],
            "selector": "[data-jp-code-runner]"
        },
        {
            "command": "kernelmenu:restart-and-clear",
            "keys": [
                "F7"
            ],
            "selector": "[data-jp-kernel-user]:focus"
        },
        {
            "command": "kernelmenu:run-all-above",
            "keys": [
                "F8"
            ],
            "selector": "[data-jp-kernel-user]:focus"
        },
        {
            "command": "terminal:open",
            "keys": [
                "Alt T"
            ],
            "selector": "body"
        },
        {
            "command": "tabsmenu:activate-previously-used-tab",
            "keys": [
                "Alt ArrowUp"
            ],
            "selector": "body"
        },
        {
            "command": "application:activate-previous-tab",
            "keys": [
                "Alt ArrowLeft"
            ],
            "selector": "body"
        },
        {
            "command": "application:activate-next-tab",
            "keys": [
                "Alt ArrowRight"
            ],
            "selector": "body"
        },
        {
            "command": "notebook:change-cell-to-code",
            "keys": [
                "W"
            ],
            "selector": ".jp-Notebook:focus"
        },
        {
            "command": "notebook:change-cell-to-markdown",
            "keys": [
                "M"
            ],
            "selector": ".jp-Notebook:focus"
        }
    ]
}

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