Google Colab Tips for Power Users

Google Colab Tips for Power Users

 

4. Jupyter Notebook Keyboard ShortcutsPermalink

If you are familiar with keyboard shortcuts from Jupyter Notebook, they don’t work directly in Colab. But I found a mental model to map between them.

Just add Ctrl + M before whatever keyboard shortcut you were using in Jupyter. This rule of thumb works for the majority of common use-cases.

Action	Jupyter Notebook	Google Colab
Add a cell above	A	Ctrl + M + A
Add a cell below	B	Ctrl + M + B
See all keyboard shorcuts	H	Ctrl + M + H
Change cell to code	Y	Ctrl + M + Y
Change cell to markdown	M	Ctrl + M + M
Interrupt the kernel	II	Ctrl + M + I
Delete a cell	DD	Ctrl + M + D
Checkpoint notebook	Ctrl + S	Ctrl + M + S

Below are some notable exceptions to this rule for which either the shortcut is changed completely or kept the same.

Action	Jupyter Notebook	Google Colab
Restart runtime	00	Ctrl + M + .
Run cell	Ctrl + Enter	Ctrl + Enter
Run cell and add new cell below	Alt + Enter	Alt + Enter
Run cell and goto the next cell below	Shift + Enter	Shift + Enter
Comment current line	Ctrl + /	Ctrl + /