Keyboard shortcuts

The full keyboard reference, grouped by what you are doing. Press Shift+? any time to open the same shortcuts inside the app, where every command is searchable and remappable. This page is long on purpose; use your browser's find to jump to a command.

View and customize shortcuts

Open the Shortcuts panel with Shift+?. Commands are grouped and searchable.

To rebind one:

1. Hover a command row to reveal its action buttons.

2. Click the record button and press your new key combination. It saves immediately.

3. Use the trash button to remove a shortcut (the command stays available in the palette), or reset to restore the default.

If a new binding conflicts with another command, a warning appears and a context picker lets you set when each command is active, so two commands can share a chord as long as their contexts do not overlap (for example Cmd+B for Bold while editing text, and something else on the canvas).

Platform key convention

Read every Cmd below as Ctrl on Windows. Where that substitution would collide with an essential shortcut, Brilliant remaps or unbinds the command; those cases show a different value in the Windows column, and the exceptions are summarized under Windows differences. Anything marked "palette" has no default key and is run from the command palette (Cmd+Shift+P), where you can also assign it a key.

Essentials

Learn these first.

Tools

Hold Space for a temporary hand tool (release to return). While drawing, hold Shift to constrain proportions and Space to reposition the in-progress shape.

Selection and navigation

A single Escape picks the most specific target: close the command palette, exit eyedropper, cancel a label edit, exit crop, clear a vector selection, exit vector or mask edit, close the AI chat, then clear the canvas selection.

Tabs

Open projects and the home screen live as tabs in the top island. These move between them.

Middle-click a tab to close it, and drag tabs to reorder. On macOS, Cmd+Ctrl+0 to 9 is a shared chord: with an element selected it sets the rotation level, and with nothing selected it jumps to a tab (home is 0).

Move and transform

Modifiers while dragging: Alt duplicates while moving, Shift constrains to one axis. While resizing a handle: Shift keeps aspect ratio, Ctrl enters scale mode (also scales fonts, strokes, radii, and children), Cmd preserves an image crop in place. Alt+hover shows distance measurements to the hovered element.

Clipboard

Arrange

Align and distribute

Layer order

Group, frame, boolean

Boolean ops need two or more elements. If a boolean or mask group is already selected, the same shortcut switches its operation type.

Components

Text

Text sizing, line height, font weight, and text direction have no default keys; set them from the Typography section or the command palette.

Color, fill, and stroke

Quick colors

The quick-color chords are macOS defaults. On Windows they are unbound (they collide with core editing shortcuts), so set color from the inspector or the palette.

Levels

Level keys jump a property to a preset step.

Rotation levels use a clock metaphor: level 1 is 30 degrees, level 2 is 60, and so on, in 30-degree steps.

Zoom and canvas view

Bare digits 0 to 9 control zoom in the Move and Hand tools, but control size levels while a drawing tool is active.

Grids and snapping

Snap guides, dimension labels, vector snapping, and clearing ruler guides have no default keys; toggle them from the command palette.

Window, background, and overlay

Overlay mode is macOS only. Its Ctrl+F and Ctrl+A hotkeys are OS-level and fire even when Brilliant is unfocused.

Canvas and file management

Cmd+E is the only export shortcut. Every other export and copy-as format is run from the command palette or the right-click menus.

Panels and search

AI chat

Cmd+N creates a new chat only when the AI input is focused; with focus on the canvas it creates a new canvas. Cmd+Shift+A toggles the chat explorer at any time.

Combos (macros)

Combos chain several actions behind one shortcut. Open the Combos editor with Cmd+Shift+M.

Limitations

• No chord (multi-key) shortcuts. Each shortcut is one key plus optional modifiers; you cannot bind sequences like Ctrl+K, Ctrl+C. Use Combos (Cmd+Shift+M) to chain actions behind a single key.

• Hold-modifier behaviors are fixed. Space (temporary hand), Alt+hover (measurements), Alt+drag (duplicate), Shift+drag (constrain), and Ctrl+drag (scale) are built in and cannot be reassigned. The K key toggles persistent scale mode as an alternative to holding Ctrl.

Windows differences

On Windows, Brilliant substitutes Ctrl for Cmd automatically. A few macOS chords collide with essential Windows shortcuts, so they are either moved to a free chord or left unbound. Every one is reassignable in the Shortcuts panel and reachable from the command palette.

Remapped:

Unbound on Windows: overlay mode, passthrough, desktop icons, the snip tool, the scale levels, quick colors, gradient colors, Outline Text, Center on selection, and the blue, green, and red highlighter combos.

Next

• Where these actions live in the UI: Quick Tour.

• Change any binding: Settings.