Keyboard Mappings and Shortcuts for Operating PuTTY thumbnail

Keyboard Mappings and Shortcuts for Operating PuTTY

A comprehensive, doc-based guide to keyboard shortcuts in the Windows SSH client “PuTTY.” This article compiles shortcuts that streamline remote work—covering copy & paste, scrolling, session management, and more.

Posted at: 2025.10.22

Table Of Contents

Basic Operations
System Menu Operations

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Basic Operations

PuTTY's key mappings have some quirks, as they differ from typical Windows OS shortcuts and standard application shortcuts.

Most notably, copy and paste operations work differently than in conventional applications: text is copied by selecting it with the mouse, and pasted with a right-click—a unique approach. Scrolling operations and PageUp key behavior also differ from what users might expect, which can be confusing at first. Take your time and start by learning the most frequently used keys.

Action	Shortcut
Copy text	Select with mouse (drag with left button)
Paste text	Right-click or Shift + Ins
Open context menu	Ctrl + Right-click
Scroll up in scrollback	Shift + PgUp
Scroll down in scrollback	Shift + PgDn
Scroll up one line	Ctrl + PgUp
Scroll down one line	Ctrl + PgDn
Jump to top of scrollback	Ctrl + Shift + PgUp
Jump to bottom of scrollback	Ctrl + Shift + PgDn
Full-screen mode	Alt + Enter
Send Break signal	Ctrl + Break
Open new window with same session	Ctrl + N
Reset session (clear screen + clear scrollback)	Ctrl + R

Note that once connected to a Linux/Unix server via PuTTY, powerful shortcuts provided by shells like Bash are available. However, these are shell-level features running on the server side, not PuTTY application functions, and are therefore omitted here.

PuTTY's system menu consolidates convenient features for session management, such as checking event logs, changing settings, and resetting the terminal. These operations can be accessed by clicking the icon in the upper-left corner of the window or by right-clicking the title bar.

For other functions, accessing the system menu is the standard approach.

Action	Shortcut
Open system menu	Click upper-left icon or right-click title bar
Display event log	System Menu → Event Log
Change settings	System Menu → Change Settings
Copy all text	System Menu → Copy All to Clipboard
Clear scrollback	System Menu → Clear Scrollback
Reset terminal	System Menu → Reset Terminal

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