Essential Pro Tools keyboard shortcuts (Mac)

Edit long enough and you end up reaching for the same menus hundreds of times a day. Getting a handful of shortcuts into your fingers makes your work noticeably faster. Here are the Mac defaults we actually use in dialogue and post editing, with when to use them and what to watch out for.

These are the Mac defaults as listed in Avid's Pro Tools Shortcuts Guide (version 2025.10). If you've changed them in Setup > Keyboard Shortcuts, yours may differ.

Avid Pro Tools Shortcuts Guide (PDF)

Playback and recording

Watch out for Command + . while recording — unlike Space, it stops and throws away the take in progress, and Avid's guide marks it as not undoable. To simply stop, press Space.

Editing

The pair you'll use most is Separate (Command + E) to cut and Heal (Command + H) to join a cut back — as long as the pieces still meet where they were cut. Consolidate writes the selection to one new audio file, which is handy for tidying a run of small dialogue pieces into a single clip.

Windows, zoom and tools

In Shuffle mode, deleting or moving a clip pulls or pushes the later clips on the tracks you're editing. In post, where dialogue has to stay in sync with picture, that's easy to do by accident — so editors usually work in Slip mode, and some Command-click the Shuffle button to lock it out.

Single-key shortcuts (Commands Focus)

Pro Tools also has single-letter shortcuts, but only while Commands Keyboard Focus is on. Turn it on with the a–z button in the Edit window, or press Command + Option + 1. If a letter key does nothing, check this first.

Finding and changing shortcuts

Open Setup > Keyboard Shortcuts (Control + Shift + K) to see almost every command and its shortcut. You can search by command name, or press a key to see what it already does. Double-click a command to give it a new shortcut; if the key is taken, the conflict shows in red and you can resolve or reset it.

Pro Tools Search (Control + Shift + S) runs a command by name without a shortcut at all. It also finds tracks, clips and memory locations, and opens AudioSuite plug-ins by name.

AudioSuite and the Render button

You can open an AudioSuite plug-in from Pro Tools Search by typing its name. But buttons in the AudioSuite window, like Render, Learn and Send, can't be given shortcuts, so you click them with the mouse every time.