Jump to Recent File

It's hard to divorce the mouse. "How do I jump between files?" The good news: there are better ways.

Starting with this one. Use the Recent Files action to quickly jump between the files you are working on. You get a low-disruption popup which is keyboard friendly, letting you jump between files you are actively looking at.

You can invoke this with the Recent Files action, Ctrl-E on Windows/Linux and Cmd-E on the Mac. It brings up the Recent Files popup, which you can dismiss using Esc without taking an action.

Often you toggle between two files. By default, Recent Files has your previous file already selected. Thus, Ctrl-E, Enter lets you flip back and forth.

If your file is further down the Recent Files list, you can use your mouse (bad) or keyboard arrows (better) to move the selection before pressing enter. But there's a much better way: speed search. After pressing Ctrl-E, just start typing and the list filters. The typed expression can be parts of filenames, include parts of parent directory names, etc.

As we'll show in another tip, Recent Files doesn't just work with files: it also lets you mouse/cursor/speed-search into the left column for tools. One less set of shortcuts to memorize.

The Recent Files action lists files you've visited. Perhaps you want a more focused list of files you've edited. Try the Recently Changed Files action...same as Recent Files but with Shift.