Find anything, move fast

Kempt is built so your hands stay on the keyboard. One key turns a thought into a task, two keystrokes jump anywhere, and search reaches every file in your home. This page covers the handful of shortcuts that make the app feel instant.

Try this

1. Press Q anywhere in the app. Quick Capture opens.
2. Type tomorrow submit the report p1 and press Enter.
3. Look at the result: a task with tomorrow’s date and priority 1, parsed from the plain line you typed. Since you did not name a project, it landed in the Inbox.
4. Now press Cmd/Ctrl+K and type two or three letters of any note title.
5. Press Enter on the match. You are in the note. That round trip, capture plus jump, is most of what speed means in Kempt.

Quick Capture

Press Q (or Cmd/Ctrl+N) from any screen. Type one line and Kempt turns it into a task.

The line is read as natural language:

• Dates: “tomorrow submit the report” schedules the task for tomorrow.
• Priority: “p1” sets priority 1.

If you do not name a project, the task lands in the Inbox, where you can sort it later. See Planning.

Quick Switcher

Cmd/Ctrl+K opens the Quick Switcher. Type part of a title and jump to any note, task, or project.

Korean titles match by initial consonants (초성), so a few keystrokes are enough even for long titles.

Search

Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+F opens full-text search across everything in your home.

Two operators narrow results:

• tag:#name finds files carrying that tag.
• [key:value] finds files with that frontmatter property.

Korean initial-consonant search works here too.

Command Palette

Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+P opens the Command Palette. Type the name of any app action and run it.

Each entry shows its shortcut badge, so browsing the palette is the fastest way to learn shortcuts you do not know yet.

Focus mode

Cmd/Ctrl+. collapses the side panels and leaves a quiet screen with just your writing. Press it again to bring them back.

Moving around

• Cmd/Ctrl+1 through Cmd/Ctrl+5 jump between the main screens.
• Cmd/Ctrl+[ and Cmd/Ctrl+] go back and forward through your history, like a browser.

The right sidebar tabs have direct shortcuts:

Tab	Shortcut
Links	Alt/Option+B
Local Graph	Alt/Option+G
Outline	Alt/Option+O
Today	Alt/Option+T
Journal	Alt/Option+J
AI Chat	Cmd/Ctrl+L

The full shortcut list

The complete, current list lives in Settings > Hotkeys inside the app. That screen is the source of truth, so this page keeps to the shortcuts worth memorizing.

Note: Shortcuts on this page are written in Cmd/Ctrl form. Inside the app they display in your OS’s own symbols: Cmd on Mac, Ctrl on Windows.