Tutorial:Keyboard shortcuts

Factorio has a lot of keyboard bindings, and it's not hard to miss (or underestimate) some of the "quality of life" features related to them. The following are a collection of explanations for these inconspicuous keyboard bindings. Because many of the keyboard bindings are contextual and are bound to the same key sequence by default, this article uses the internal name for these keyboard bindings and, for convenience, shows their default bindings after their name.

Manipulating entities

• Copy entity settings (Shift + Right mouse button) and Paste entity settings (Shift + Left mouse button) allows you to copy settings between entities. Holding down the Paste entity settings keyboard binding while moving or dragging can paste to multiple entities with a single stroke. This works for:
  • recipes for automated crafting machines (assembling machines, oil refineries, chemical plants and centrifuges)
  • recipe requests; if a recipe is pasted onto a requester chest, it will request the recipe's ingredients.
  • filters for filterable devices (filtered slots in an inventory, requester chests, filter inserters, and cargo wagons)
  • circuit network entities and connections (combinators, lamps, power switches, any entity's signal settings)
  • railway settings, (locomotive color and schedule, train stop names, color between locomotives and stops)

• Remove pole cables (Shift + Left mouse button) disconnects electric poles from their neighbors. Alternately, a single connection between two poles can be added or removed by clicking both poles with a copper cable.

• Rotate (R) and Reverse rotate (Shift + R) rotate entities clockwise and counter-clockwise, respectively. This also reverses the directions that pumps, underground belts, and locomotives face.

Manipulating items

• Fast entity transfer (Ctrl + Left mouse button) while empty-handed grabs items from an entity without having to open it. When held down, this gathers items from multiple entities by dragging over them with a single stroke. As a general rule of thumb, this grabs everything that an inserter would grab; i.e., the outputs of furnaces and automatic crafting machines, science packs from labs, etc.
  • Fast entity split (Ctrl + Right mouse button) only moves half of what is inside the entity into the user's inventory.

• Fast entity transfer (Ctrl + Left mouse button) fills an entity's inventory or input slots with the item held in the cursor. Holding down the Fast entity transfer keyboard binding while moving or dragging over multiple entities can be used to stock them with a single motion. As a rule of thumb, this inserts anything that an inserter would put into an entity; for example, you can grab some fuel, hold the Fast entity transfer keyboard binding, and drag over fuel-burning entities to refuel several of them in one stroke.
  • Fast entity split (Ctrl + Right mouse button) only moves half of what is held in the cursor into the entity.

• Toggle filter (Middle mouse button) sets a filter on an inventory slot. If the slot is empty, the filter can be chosen from a list of all solid items. This works for slots in the player's toolbelt quickbar, car trunks, and cargo wagons. You can use the Copy entity settings and Paste entity settings keyboard bindings to copy and paste filters between slots.

Construction tips

• Larger terrain building area (PAD +) and Smaller terrain building area (PAD -) adjust the brush size when building tiles such as landfill and concrete. The brush size can range from 1x1 to 10x10.

• Build (Left mouse button) has a smart placement feature for power poles that is activated by holding Build while moving or dragging. While the Build keyboard binding is held, poles will be automatically placed when they reach their maximum wire reach distance. If there are unpowered entities on the route, the poles will be placed "early" (before the maximum wire reach distance) to power those entities.
  • This feature also works with underground belts and pipes.

• Select for cancel deconstruction (Shift + Left mouse button) is used to unmark entities for deconstruction. Pick up a deconstruction planner in the cursor, hold the keyboard binding, and drag the blue selection rectangle over the entities to be unmarked.

• Build ghost (Shift + Left mouse button) will place a ghost version of the entity in hand.
  • Placing a blueprint with Build ghost will force-place it and mark any trees and rocks for deconstruction.

• Pipette tool (Q) is used to quickly put an item in hand without searching through the inventory (similar to a "color picker" or "eyedropper" tool in a graphics program). Simply hover over an entity and press the keyboard binding. If the player's inventory contains that item, it will be placed in the cursor. This keyboard binding is also used for putting a held item away.

Display options

• Show info (Alt) turns on an info overlay that displays entities' recipes, filters, and inventories at a glance. The overlay will also show directional arrows over inserters that makes their orientation more obvious.

• Many systems in the game can be visualized with the customizable debug mode. This can display color coded rail blocks, current FPS/UPS, and many more informational overlays.
  • Toggle debug settings GUI (F4) configures the debug mode views.
  • Toggle basic debug (F5), Toggle detailed debug (F6) and Toggle full debug (F7) switches between them.

See also

• Keyboard bindings
• Debug mode
• TIL all the keyboard shortcuts, a reddit guide to commonly missed keyboard bindings