macOS-like shortcuts in Hyprland

I am used to shortcuts like ⌘C & ⌘V for copy & paste, and ⌘ key in general since I have been using a MacBook for a long time now. So using Hyprland on Linux has been a bit challenging as I always press the wrong keys due to muscle memory.

I still need to use MacBook for work, so I don't want to get used to different shortcuts. This is my attempt to make the shortcuts in Hyprland more familiar.

Keybindings

It's already quite straightforward to set up custom keybindings in Hyprland to do specific actions, like opening an app launcher, quitting an app etc. It can be done using the bind directive in the config file at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/hypr/hyprland.conf (usually ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf).

For the $mainMod key, I use Alt, since it's in the same location as the ⌘ key on a MacBook:

$mainMod = ALT

I use rofi-wayland to replicate functionality such as app launcher (like Spotlight), switching between windows (like ⌘Tab) and inserting emojis with rofimoji (like Ctrl⌘Space):

bind = $mainMod, SPACE, exec, rofi -show drun
bind = $mainMod, TAB, exec, rofi -show window
bind = $mainMod CTRL, SPACE, exec, rofimoji --use-icons

I have more customizations for rofi, but this is the basic setup to replicate this idea.

Also hyprlock for the lock screen using the same shortcut as macOS (Ctrl⌘Q):

bind = $mainMod CTRL, Q, exec, hyprlock

Then shortcuts such as fullscreen, and closing apps:

bind = $mainMod CTRL, F, fullscreen,
bind = $mainMod, Q, killactive,

The killactive binding is not quite the same as ⌘Q as killactive actually closes the window and not quit the app. But it's closer than how ⌘W works, since the ⌘W shortcut is used to close tabs in addition to closing windows.

Remapping

The next step is to remap shortcuts to be more in line with macOS. It's actually straightforward with the sendshortcut dispatcher. The main idea is to assign keybindings to the shortcuts I want to remap, then use the sendshortcut dispatcher to send a different key combination.

The sendshortcut dispatcher takes 3 params: mod, key, window (optional). So to remap $mainMod A to ⌘A, it'd be something like this:

bind = $mainMod, A, sendshortcut, CTRL, A,

I basically remapped ⌘ + all characters in the alphabet so most shortcuts will be remapped:

bind = $mainMod, A, sendshortcut, CTRL, A,
bind = $mainMod, B, sendshortcut, CTRL, B,
bind = $mainMod, C, sendshortcut, CTRL, C,
bind = $mainMod, D, sendshortcut, CTRL, D,
bind = $mainMod, E, sendshortcut, CTRL, E,
bind = $mainMod, F, sendshortcut, CTRL, F,
bind = $mainMod, G, sendshortcut, CTRL, G,
bind = $mainMod, H, sendshortcut, CTRL, H,
bind = $mainMod, I, sendshortcut, CTRL, I,
bind = $mainMod, J, sendshortcut, CTRL, J,
bind = $mainMod, K, sendshortcut, CTRL, K,
bind = $mainMod, L, sendshortcut, CTRL, L,
bind = $mainMod, M, sendshortcut, CTRL, M,
bind = $mainMod, N, sendshortcut, CTRL, N,
bind = $mainMod, O, sendshortcut, CTRL, O,
bind = $mainMod, P, sendshortcut, CTRL, P,
bind = $mainMod, Q, sendshortcut, CTRL, Q,
bind = $mainMod, R, sendshortcut, CTRL, R,
bind = $mainMod, S, sendshortcut, CTRL, S,
bind = $mainMod, T, sendshortcut, CTRL, T,
bind = $mainMod, U, sendshortcut, CTRL, U,
bind = $mainMod, V, sendshortcut, CTRL, V,
bind = $mainMod, W, sendshortcut, CTRL, W,
bind = $mainMod, X, sendshortcut, CTRL, X,
bind = $mainMod, Y, sendshortcut, CTRL, Y,
bind = $mainMod, Z, sendshortcut, CTRL, Z,

Pretty straightforward!

For redo, it should actually be ⌘ShiftZ instead of ⌘Y, so something like this:

bind = $mainMod SHIFT, Z, sendshortcut, CTRL, Y,

Unfortunately this didn't seem to work for me. If you have any ideas, please let me know!

Copy & Paste in Terminal

It's great that copy and paste use the same shortcuts as in other applications on macOS. However, since Linux uses Ctrl + C for copy, Terminal apps need to use a different shortcut as Ctrl + C is already used for killing processes in terminals. So our remapping for copy and paste won't work.

Luckily, we can also add custom logic for our keybindings, where we can check whether the active window is a terminal or not using hyprctl. Then we can dispatch Ctrl + Shift + C and Ctrl + Shift + V instead.

I use Ghostty for my Terminal, so I wrote the binding by checking if the active window class matches Ghostty:

bind = $mainMod, C, exec, hyprctl activewindow | grep -q "class: com.mitchellh.ghostty" && hyprctl dispatch sendshortcut "CTRL SHIFT, C," || hyprctl dispatch sendshortcut "CTRL, C,"
bind = $mainMod, V, exec, hyprctl activewindow | grep -q "class: com.mitchellh.ghostty" && hyprctl dispatch sendshortcut "CTRL SHIFT, V," || hyprctl dispatch sendshortcut "CTRL, V,"

This way, I send Ctrl + Shift + C to Ghostty and Ctrl + C to other applications using the same shortcuts.

Text-editing shortcuts

I also found myself using the same shortcuts for text navigation and editing as in macOS. So I remapped them as well.

bind = CTRL, A, sendshortcut, , home,
bind = CTRL, E, sendshortcut, , end,
bind = CTRL, F, sendshortcut, , right,
bind = CTRL, B, sendshortcut, , left,
bind = CTRL, P, sendshortcut, , up,
bind = CTRL, N, sendshortcut, , down,
bind = CTRL, D, sendshortcut, , delete,
bind = CTRL, H, sendshortcut, , backspace,

Wrapping up

This list is also nowhere near exhaustive, just the ones I use frequently. I may also have missed any edge cases. So it's always a good idea to adjust your keybindings to fit your workflow and only use my setup as a starting point.