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Keyboard Shortcuts

Summary

Every keystroke Jade GT recognises, grouped by what it does. Press ? anywhere outside a text field to open the in-app cheatsheet, or use this page when you want a printable copy.

  • Triage

    Pick, reject, color-label, and rate the selected photo without touching the mouse.

  • Edit and save

    Undo edits, commit the batch, and walk through the gallery one photo at a time.

  • Help and dialogs

    Open the in-app cheatsheet, close any dialog, and reset a field to its imported value.

Mac users substitute Cmd for Ctrl

On macOS, every shortcut listed with Ctrl also works with Cmd. The in-app cheatsheet shows ⌘ symbols; this page uses Ctrl to keep the tables short.

Command Palette

  • Open the palette

    Press Cmd+K (Mac) or Ctrl+K (Windows / Linux) from anywhere in Jade GT. Type to filter. Enter runs the top result. Esc closes the palette.

  • What it does

    The Command Palette is the in-app launcher. Search every action in the workspace from one box: open Cull Mode, swap themes, jump to a tab, open Phone Metadata, run Match, and more.

  • When to reach for it

    When you are not sure where a feature lives. The palette knows the full menu and never moves under the cursor. It is the fastest way to get back to a workflow you used last week.

Mouse-free triage

Pair the palette with Space (Quick Look), C (Compare), and P / R (pick / reject) for a near keyboard-only triage loop.

Triage

These values stay in Jade GT, on this device only. Jade GT never writes them to EXIF, matching Lightroom's default behavior. They survive a session restore.

Keys Action
P Pick the selected photo (mark for export)
M Mark the selected photo as Maybe (carry into a second pass)
X Reject the selected photo (filter out)
U Unflag the selected photo
1 2 3 4 5 Set a 1-to-5 star rating on the selected photo
0 Clear the star rating on the selected photo
6 Apply the red color label
7 Apply the yellow color label
8 Apply the green color label
9 Apply the blue color label

Press the active color again to clear it

The 6-9 keys are toggles. If a photo already has the red label and you press 6 again, the label clears.

Triage carries through a collapsed stack

With a collapsed stack keeper selected, pressing P, M, X, or U applies to every frame in the stack at once. Expand the stack first if you want a per-frame pass.

Reject inside a stack hints the rest

Pressing X on a single frame inside an expanded stack does not auto-reject the rest. The other frames pick up a soft red dotted ring (candidate reject) so you notice they probably belong in the bin too. Press X to confirm or U to clear the hint.

Photo navigation

Keys Action
Ctrl + Right Move to the next photo in the gallery
Ctrl + Left Move to the previous photo in the gallery
Space Open or close Quick Look on the active photo
Left / Right (inside Quick Look) Walk to the previous or next photo without leaving the overlay
C Open or close Compare / Survey for 2 to 4 selected photos
1 to 4 (inside Compare) Make tile 1, 2, 3, or 4 the active one
P (inside Compare) Pick the active tile, reject the rest, close
M (inside Compare) Mark the active tile as Maybe, keep the overlay open
X (inside Compare) Reject every tile and close
U (inside Compare) Clear the flag on every tile, keep the overlay open
Drag inside any Compare tile Pan all tiles together (synced)
Mouse wheel inside a Compare tile Zoom all tiles together, anchored to the cursor
0 (inside Compare) Reset the synced pan and zoom

Both arrow shortcuts use your active library filter. If the gallery is filtered to "picks only," the arrows walk that subset. Quick Look uses the same filter so the next/previous arrows skip photos that the current chip hides.

Edit and save

Keys Action
Ctrl+Z Undo the last metadata edit (50-step history, pre-commit only)
Ctrl+S Open the Review Hub to confirm and write the batch
Ctrl+Enter Inside the Review Hub, fire Write Changes to Disk
Right-click on a Tags field Reset that field to the value it had when imported

Undo stops at commit

The undo history covers staged edits only. Once you commit, the changes hit disk and Ctrl+Z no longer reaches them. See Review & Commit for the commit flow.

Undo survives a reload

Your browser saves the last 50 edits and the last 100 removed photos, so closing the tab or refreshing the page doesn't wipe your undo history. Picking a brand-new project (the Disconnect or New Project actions) is what clears it.

Search and opening

Keys Action
Ctrl+P Focus the Location tab's search bar
Shift + click on Open Photos Skip the menu and jump straight to the folder picker

Modals and help

Keys Action
? Open the in-app keyboard-shortcut cheatsheet
Esc Close the active dialog (cheatsheet, Review Hub, Quick Look, Compare, Welcome dialog, picker windows)

Cull Mode

Cull Mode is the full-screen single-focus culling workspace. Open it from the Command Palette with Cmd+K then Open Cull Mode. Once it's up, its own keymap takes over.

Keys Action
P Pick the active photo and advance
M Mark the active photo as Maybe and advance
X Reject the active photo and advance
U Unflag the active photo (stays in place)
1 to 5 Set a 1-to-5 star rating on the active photo
0 Clear the star rating
Right / Left Step through the queue (skips rejects)
Tab Jump to the next burst
A Toggle the audio cadence on or off
Esc Close Cull Mode

See the Cull Mode guide for the full workflow.

  • Preview tab

    Where the triage keys (P, X, U, 1-9, 0) and the prev/next arrows show their effect on screen.

  • Tags tab

    Where right-click resets a field to its imported value.

  • Review & Commit

    Where Ctrl+S takes the batch from staged to saved on disk.

  • Troubleshooting

    Common problems and their fixes, grouped by area.

  • Glossary

    Definitions for EXIF, IPTC, XMP, GPX, and the rest of the vocabulary used across this guide.