Each screen command consists of a "C-a" (Note by ERACC: “C” here means the Ctrl key or an equivalent.) followed by one other character. For your convenience, all commands that are bound to lower-case letters are also bound to their control character counterparts (with the exception of "C-a a"; see below), thus, "C-a c" as well as "C-a C-c" can be used to create a window. See section "CUSTOMIZATION" for a description of the command.

The following table shows the default key bindings:

C-a ' (select) Prompt for a window name or number to switch to.

C-a " (windowlist -b) Present a list of all windows for selection.

C-a 0 (select 0)

… ...

C-a 9 (select 9)

C-a - (select -) Switch to window number 0 - 9, or to the blank window.

C-a tab (focus) Switch the input focus to the next region.

C-a C-a (other) Toggle to the window displayed previously. Note that this binding defaults to the command character typed twice, unless overridden. For instance, if you use the option "-e]x", this command becomes "]]".

C-a a (meta) Send the command character (C-a) to window. See escape command.

C-a A (title) Allow the user to enter a name for the current window.

C-a b

C-a C-b (break) Send a break to window.

C-a B (pow_break) Reopen the terminal line and send a break.

C-a c

C-a C-c (screen) Create a new window with a shell and switch to that window.

C-a C (clear) Clear the screen.

C-a d

C-a C-d (detach) Detach screen from this terminal.

C-a D D (pow_detach) Detach and logout.

C-a f

C-a C-f (flow) Toggle flow on, off or auto.

C-a F (fit) Resize the window to the current region size.

C-a C-g (vbell) Toggles screen's visual bell mode.

C-a h (hardcopy) Write a hardcopy of the current window to the file "hardcopy.n".

C-a H (log) Begins/ends logging of the current window to the file "screenlog.n".

C-a i

C-a C-i (info) Show info about this window.

C-a k

C-a C-k (kill) Destroy current window.

C-a l

C-a C-l (redisplay) Fully refresh current window.

C-a L (login) Toggle this windows login slot. Available only if screen is configured to update the utmp database.

C-a m

C-a C-m (lastmsg) Repeat the last message displayed in the message line.

C-a M (monitor) Toggles monitoring of the current window.

C-a space

C-a n

C-a C-n (next) Switch to the next window.

C-a N (number) Show the number (and title) of the current window.

C-a backspace

C-a h

C-a p

C-a C-p (prev) Switch to the previous window (opposite of C-a n).

C-a q

C-a C-q (xon) Send a control-q to the current window.

C-a Q (only) Delete all regions but the current one.

C-a r

C-a C-r (wrap) Toggle the current window's line-wrap setting (turn the current window's automatic margins on and off).

C-a s

C-a C-s (xoff) Send a control-s to the current window.

C-a S (split) Split the current region into two new ones.

C-a t

C-a C-t (time) Show system information.

C-a v (version) Display the version and compilation date.

C-a C-v (digraph) Enter digraph.

C-a w

C-a C-w (windows) Show a list of window.

C-a W (width) Toggle 80/132 columns.

C-a x

C-a C-x (lockscreen) Lock this terminal.

C-a X (remove) Kill the current region.

C-a z

C-a C-z (suspend)Suspend screen. Your system must support BSD-style job-control.

C-a Z (reset) Reset the virtual terminal to its "power-on" values.

C-a . (dumptermcap) Write out a ".termcap" file.

C-a ? (help) Show key bindings.

C-a C-\ (quit) Kill all windows and terminate screen.

C-a : (colon) Enter command line mode.

C-a [

C-a C-[

C-a esc (copy) Enter copy/scrollback mode.

C-a ] (paste .) Write the contents of the paste buffer to the stdin queue of the current window.

C-a {

C-a } (history) Copy and paste a previous (command) line.

C-a > (writebuf) Write paste buffer to a file.

C-a < (readbuf) Reads the screen-exchange file into the paste buffer.

C-a = (removebuf) Removes the file used by C-a < and C-a >.

C-a , (license) Shows where screen comes from, where it went to and why you can use it.

C-a _ (silence) Start/stop monitoring the current window for inactivity.

C-a * (displays) Show a listing of all currently attached displays.

Copied from 'man screen' by ERA Computers & Consulting

Download this in PDF format: The Default Key Bindings for 'screen'