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Immediate Value

After this tutorial, you’ll navigate Affinity using keyboard shortcuts, copy entries between lists efficiently, and have a cheat sheet of the most useful shortcuts.

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Prerequisites

  • Tutorial 1: Your First List
  • Tutorial 3: Search and Discovery

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Quick-Start Roadmap

  1. Learn the essential keyboard shortcuts
  2. Practice search navigation (Cmd+K / Alt+K)
  3. Copy entries between lists
  4. Build your shortcut muscle memory

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Task 1: Essential Keyboard Shortcuts

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Context

Keyboard shortcuts speed up common actions. These cover most daily workflows.

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Action

Learn these shortcuts (practice each one now):
Windows users: it’s Alt+K, not Ctrl+K for global search — and Alt+J, not Ctrl+J, for AI Chat. This is a common point of confusion.
Cmd+K / Alt+K is the single most useful shortcut — it opens search from anywhere in the app.

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Expected Outcome

You’ve practiced each shortcut at least once and can use Cmd+K / Alt+K without thinking.

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📚 Help Center

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Task 2: Search-First Navigation Workflow

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Context

Using global search is often faster than clicking through menus, especially when you know the name of the list, company, or person you want to reach.

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Action

Practice this workflow:
  1. Press Cmd+K (Mac) / Alt+K (Windows)
  2. Type the first few letters of a list name, company, or person
  3. Press Enter on the top result
  4. You’re there — no clicking through the sidebar

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Expected Outcome

Search-first navigation feels natural. You instinctively reach for Cmd+K / Alt+K.

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Task 3: Copy Entries Between Lists

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Context

When a company on your Sourcing list also belongs on another organization list — a thesis list, say — copy the entry rather than recreating it. This preserves all profile data and history. To move a deal into an opportunity pipeline, use a Create Opportunity list trigger instead (Tutorial 13).

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Action

  1. Open the source list (e.g., Sourcing)
  2. Select the entry (or entries) you want to copy
  3. Click “Copy to List” in the toolbar
  4. In the modal, “Select or create a list” as the destination (e.g., “Climate Thesis”)
  5. Click “Add to List”
Copying an entry doesn’t duplicate the entity — it adds the same person/company to another list. The profile remains the same; only the list-specific fields are new. Global fields carry over.
Copy to List works between lists of the same type — organization to organization, people to people. Opportunity lists aren’t supported. List type is permanent — it cannot be changed after creation. Large copies run in batches of 1,000 entries.

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Expected Outcome

The entry appears in the destination list with global data intact and new list-specific fields ready to fill.

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📚 Help Center

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Task 4: Build Your Shortcut Muscle Memory

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Context

Shortcuts only save time once they’re automatic. This exercise builds the habits.

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Action

5-minute daily drill:
  1. Cmd+K / Alt+K → Navigate to a list
  2. Cmd+Shift+F / Ctrl+Shift+F → Add a filter
  3. Cmd+Shift+S / Ctrl+Shift+S → Sort the results
  4. Cmd+Shift+C / Ctrl+Shift+C → Open Customize and show or hide a column
  5. Cmd+K / Alt+K → Navigate somewhere else Repeat for several days until the shortcuts feel automatic.

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Expected Outcome

After a few days of practice, you use shortcuts without conscious thought.

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Common Questions

Press Cmd+/ (Mac) or Ctrl+/ (Windows), or open the menu next to your name and choose Keyboard Shortcuts.
Not currently. Affinity uses a fixed set of shortcuts.
Most shortcuts work across views. Cmd+K / Alt+K (search) works everywhere. Filter and Sort shortcuts are specific to list views.

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Where to Go Next

  • Next tutorial: Tutorial 9: Building Your Pipeline
  • 🗺️ Learning Paths: New Admin Setup (Step 3)
  • 📖 Help Center: Keyboard Shortcuts