100+ Best Keyboard Shortcuts for After Effects | Ae Genius

Keyboard shortcuts are the best way to work faster in After Effects, and in this video, I made a list of more than 100 of my favorite shortcuts that every motion designer should be using. Think of it like a speedrun for keyboard shortcuts. I cover shortcuts for almost every aspect of After Effects and even put them all together into a free downloadable PDF. Let's do this.

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Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:00 Keyboard Shortcut Editor
02:28 Application Shortcuts
05:02 Composition Shortcuts
08:04 Overlays
10:46 Editing Text
11:53 New Layer Shortcuts
12:25 Tool Shortcuts
14:32 Timeline shortcuts
16:05 Navigating the Timeline
18:46 Manipulating Layers
21:26 Layer Shortcuts
24:00 Properties
25:58 Keyframe Shortcuts
27:30 Custom Shortcuts

[AndrewMarston]

You forgot one: Magically resolve all expression errors with Alt + F4 (Cmd + Q on Mac).

[gustavosaliola]

Jake, i'm on my 23rd year of After Effects, and never stop smiling when this things appear time to time again. Thanks for the constant dedication to help others, in a beautiful, didactic and fast way.

[IanPei]

Such an amazing list!

You can also ALT + Drag & Drop in the Project window and it'll swap the source where ever it's present in the entire project! It's great if you have a bunch of different comps/precomps using the same asset and don't want to open each one just to replace the layer.

[chernandez]

Thanks so much for this Jake! Super helpful!

[Lada]

16:19 -- I did not know about CTRL + SHIFT + A to deselect, but what I had found is that by clicking on the empty space just to the right of the Parent & Link dropdown boxes (so between the dropdown boxes and where the timeline/layers actually start) does the same thing.

23:55 -- You can also ALT + drag n drop it onto the timeline with the layer selected.

[wjakok]

F2 is a shortcut for deselecting layers too, also when adding properties with ALT - SHIFT - 'PROPERTY SHORTCUT' Instead you can use CTRL - SHIFT - 'PROPERTY SHORTCUT' to immediately add a value to that property. A window will pop up when doing this and you can start typing the value and press enter (One note though for Opacity you do use O instead of T). Another tip: I did add 1 custom shortcut: ALT - S, which will add a keyframe to where ever the time indicator is located to whatever property I have selected.

[TheSancheztomas]

Another great video. Useful as always.

[jlindsay]

Finally someone mentioning what I heard once called by someone the "holy trinity" shortcut for replacing layers, as it creates a triangle on your keyboard to press it. CMD OPT / So incredibly useful. Everyone always shows the Alt Drag way but this shortcut is way faster. Especially when you need to replace mutliple logos or footage for 100 hundreds of variations of a comp. Weirdly, the "Replace from Bin" in Premiere (which is essentially the same thing) you have to set up a custom shortcut to do the same thing.

[xinyusunny]

The blending mode tip is so useful! I've been manually cycle them through until today LOL

[o.abdalrahman]

Jake blessing us with a 30m video! What a treat! <3

[MotionWizard]

أنا عامل لنفسي حوالي 30 اختصار مخصوص زيادة على دول.. الاختصارات فعلا بتفرق جدا في سرعة الشغل
I have about 30 custom shortcuts for myself, in addition to these. The shortcuts really make a big difference in the speed of work

[animaki]

Thanks for the great Proportional Grid tip @09:39 never crossed my mind to do something like that! Also the "X" shortcut for focusing the selected layer as the first one is very useful, 10 years of using AE and didn't knew that (LOL)... I used alternative - double press U, but it will expand the keyframes as well.
For @11:15 - You can also press the middle mouse button if it has one, for text commit.
For editing the text in terms of adjusting the letter spacing you can use "ALT+ left or right arrow", and thus move the selected characters closer or away from each other.
Great tips for custom shortcuts, I would also add a useful custom shortcut that does Time Reverse on selected keyframes.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

[jzwadlo]

98/100 Not bad! Ironically never used or knew the one to get to the shortcut editor haha.

Fav one I set for myself is Control + Shift + X (pc) to clear all caches. And it is used almost every 10 minutes on instinct!

Oh and Control shift + a to select all then straight after control + shift + tilde collapses all - works in project and timeline - Really great for people with ADHD like me that need everything to be neat - soon as I start leaving layers folded out with properties and such hitting those 2 back to back just collapses and tidies everything in 2 seconds and everything seems all right and tidy in the world again 😂

[EdNorty]

I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS FOR 2024!

WOOHOO, THANK YOU SIR!

[Thefxamv]

Ctrl + scroll wheel to move vertically in timeline.
Shift + scroll wheel to move horizontally in timeline.

Something i found out by accident.

[CodyNitcher]

Another set of good shortcuts if you have a numpad is you can use it to type in the layer index number to select that layer in your timeline 🧙🏻‍♂

[grooveecard]

It's sad that I can't freaking hit the "Like" button more than once for this. Gold mine of info for me, and I've been on AE since the 3.1 days.

[distant]

19:50 This also works in the Project panel.

[fariiidmahmoodi]

I always use F2 to deselect everything.

[maotao]

How did you change your Interface, it looks way more modern than mine