Tutorial:Keyboard shortcuts

Factorio has a lot of keybinds, and it's not hard to miss (or underestimate) some of the "quality of life" shortcuts in the game. The following are a collection of keybind-related tips that explain some of the less obvious shortcuts in Factorio. All of these tips are simply keyboard bindings that are commonly overlooked or have extra functionality.

Manipulating entities

• Factorio has copy and paste functionality for almost any entity that has settings: Copy entity settings (Shift + Right mouse button) and Paste entity settings (Shift + Left mouse button). Holding down the Paste entity settings shortcut and dragging can paste to multiple entities with a single stroke. This works for:
  • recipes for assembling machines, chemical plants, oil refineries and centrifuges
  • filters for filter inserters, requester chests, cargo wagons, and even single filtered slots in an inventory.
  • settings for circuit network connections, combinators, lamps, power switches, etc.
  • locomotive color and schedule, and train stop names
  • recipe requests; if a recipe is pasted onto a requester chest, it will request the recipe's ingredients; the quantity requested depends on crafting speed and modules.

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

• Entities can be rotated clockwise with Rotate (R) and counter-clockwise with Reverse rotate (Shift + R). This shortcut also reverses the directions that pumps, underground belts, and locomotives face.

Manipulating items

• While "empty-handed," Fast entity transfer (Ctrl + Left mouse button) grabs items from an entity without having to open it. When held down, this shortcut can gather items from multiple entities by dragging over them with a single stroke. As a general rule of thumb, this shortcut grabs everything that an inserter would grab out of the entity; i.e., the outputs of furnaces/assembling machines, science packs from labs, etc.

• With items in hand, Inventory transfer (Ctrl + Left mouse button) fills an entity's inventory or input slots with the held item. Dragging this shortcut over multiple entities can be used to fill them with a single motion. As a rule of thumb, this shortcut inserts anything that an inserter would put into an entity; For example, you can grab some fuel, hold this shortcut and drag over furnaces or burner devices to refuel several of them in one stroke.

• To filter an inventory slot so that it only accepts a certain item, click the slot with Toggle filter (Middle mouse button). 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 shortcut to copy and paste filters between slots.

Construction tips

• By placing an electric pole and keeping Build (Left mouse button) held, moving the mouse or player in any direction will begin smart placement. While the Build button 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.
  • The smart placement feature also works with underground belts and pipes.

• Using Build ghost (Shift + Left mouse button) when placing an entity will instead place a ghost version of the entity. Ghosts can be captured by blueprints.

• Using Build ghost (Shift + Left mouse button) to place a blueprint will force-place it and mark any obstructions for deconstruction, as a deconstruction planner would.

• Entities marked for deconstruction can be unmarked. With a deconstruction planner in hand, hold Select for cancel deconstruction (Shift + Left mouse button) and drag to select the entities to be unmarked.

• The pipette tool 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). To use it, hover over an entity and press Pipette tool (Q). If the player's inventory contains that item, it will be placed in the cursor. This shortcut is also used for removing the item from the cursor ("emptying hands").

Display shortcuts

• In order to see entities' recipes, filters, and inventories at a glance, use Show info (Alt) to turn on the info overlay. The overlay will also show directional arrows over inserters that makes their orientation more obvious. ^[more?]

• 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. Use Toggle debug settings GUI (F4) to configure the debug mode views, and Toggle basic debug (F5), Toggle detailed debug (F6) and Toggle full debug (F7) to switch between them.

See also

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