25 Adobe Premiere Shortcuts in under 60 Seconds

Adobe Premiere comes with a bunch of built-in keyboard shortcuts that can increase your speed and efficiency while editing. Less clicking and dragging is always a good thing, right?

But a lot of these shortcuts aren’t very visible when you’re getting started with Premiere. Luckily, we know 25 game-changing shortcuts in Premiere that’ll help you fly through your next edit.

So let’s get to it! Here’s a collection of useful keys that’ll help you become a better, faster editor and put your video editing into warp speed.

Tool shortcuts

V - Selection tool

The selection tool is the default mouse tool in Premiere. It allows you to click and select a clip. That's about it! Once your clip is selected or highlighted, you can move it around the timeline, delete it, copy and paste it, or adjust its settings.

A or Shift + A - Track forward selection tool

While you’re moving clips around your timeline and getting your edit together, it can be cumbersome to select everything you want and move it around, especially if you’re working with a bunch of clips. An easy way to select exactly what you need is to use the A key. Hit it once, and you’ll be able to select everything to the right of your playhead. As an alternative, Shift + A selects everything to the left! To get back to your regular selection tool, just press the V key, and you’re good to go.

C - Razor

One of the most important shortcuts is the C key for cutting up clips on your timeline. Premiere maps C to the razor tool, which is great for quick access, but not so efficient because you still have to use your mouse to click and cut a clip.

T - Text tool

Want to add text to your timeline? Hit the T tool, click where you want the text in your viewer, and then start typing. The text tool is handy to add new text, edit existing text, or create an additional text layer.

Navigating the timeline

Enter - Plays from the beginning

No matter where your play bar is in your timeline, when you hit Enter, your video will start playing back from the beginning of your timeline. If you have an In/Out selected, it'll start playing at the In point as marked up on your timeline. This comes in very handy when you want to watch your video from the beginning without having to scroll through your sequence.

L - Speed up video playback

A quick way to play back your footage in fast-forward is to use the L key. Each time you click it, it’ll speed up playback faster and faster, so you can really cruise through your footage. This is a great way to review your footage or your edit quickly.

J - Reverse video playback

Similar to the L key, J reverses playback. Each time you click it, it'll go in reverse even faster.

Spacebar - Play or pause video playback

Everyone might know this one, but it's so critical to the post-production process, it bears mentioning! Hitting Spacebar will play or pause the video, just like in almost every other video app known to man.

Up and Down arrows - Move playhead to the next edit

Your project’s timeline can get cluttered, especially if your video is more than a few minutes long. On your timeline, scrolling from side to side is one way to navigate between clips, but using the Up and Down arrows is a much faster way to get from one clip to another. Up goes to the beginning of a clip, and Down goes to the end.

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Left and Right arrows - Move playhead frame by frame

Another way to navigate between clips is by using the left and right arrows to move one frame at a time. Or you can hold Shift, and use the Left and Right arrows to move 5 frames at a time.

- + keys - Zoom in and out

Zooming in and out on your timeline is important to fine-tune your edit and make precise cuts. Instead of using your mouse, the + and - keys will quickly zoom you in or out on your timeline. If you’re zoomed in all the way, try clicking the backslash key \ to quickly zoom out your timeline to see everything at a glance.

Backslash \ - Zoom out to reveal the entire timeline

With the tap of the \ key, your timeline will be zoomed out to show the entire sequence. This is very handy to use when you're zoomed way in on a particular part of your timeline and you want to quickly punch out to see where you're at in your video.

Tilde ~ (right above tab) - Expand any window

Hitting the ` button will enlarge whatever window you are hovering over in Premiere. This is great for quickly previewing your edit full screen. This also works great for getting a closer look at any other window on a laptop.

Command - + - Expand video track height

To make the video track height larger or smaller, hit Command +/-. This will make it easier to add keyframes or see the thumbnail of your video track.

Option - + - Expand audio track height

To increase the audio track height, hit Option +/-. This will show you a better look at the audio waveform and will make automating levels with keyframes much easier to dial in.

Editing shortcuts

Shift click - Select multiple clips

With the selection tool, holding down Shift will allow you to select multiple clips. This is handy to adjust the settings on multiple clips, copy and paste multiple clips, or even shift multiple clips in your timeline. This works for audio and video tracks, too.

Option + click and drag - Duplicate a clip

To duplicate an audio or video clip, hit Option and then click and drag. This will create a copy of the clip for you to place anywhere in your timeline.

Command + Left or Right arrow - Nudge a clip one frame

This shortcut will become your best friend. Click on a clip (or select multiple clips) and hit Command and the Left/Right arrow to move your selection one frame at a time. This is super helpful to really fine-tune the timing of an edit.

Shift + Command + Left or Right arrow - Nudge a clip five frames

If you're in the market for another best friend, hit Shift + Command + the Left/Right arrow to nudge a clip or a selection of clips 5 frames. It’s much easier than using a mouse to click and drag.

Command + L - Unlink audio and video

This is super helpful for making L cuts or just quickly unlinking your audio and video tracks. This breaks the link between audio and video tracks so you can individually move, copy, or delete them.

G - Adjust audio gain

This is a great little shortcut for getting to the gain control panel quickly. You can boost or lower the decibels (dB) on an audio track by selecting the track, hitting G, and then punching in how many dBs you want to raise or lower it by.

Command + R - Clip speed settings

Want to speed up or slow down your footage? Select the clip and hit Command + R. This will pop up the speed control panel for you to make your clip speed adjustments.

Shift + K - Adds an edit

Don't want to use the cut razor blade tool to split a clip? Move the playhead over a clip and hit Shift + K. This will insert an edit (split the clip) at the playhead. This is super handy for trimming clips or quickly moving part of a clip to another layer or a different part of your sequence.

Shift + D - Adds a default transition

Want to add a quick cross dissolve to your audio track? Select the clips you want to add a transition to and hit Shift + D. This will automatically add the default transition in between those clips. Make sure to customize your default transition and length in "Timeline Settings" in your Adobe Premiere preferences.

Shift + Delete - Ripple deletes a clip

Normally, when you delete a clip in Premiere, it leaves a blank space in your timeline. If you want the surrounding clips to automatically collapse upon deleting a middle clip, this shortcut will do the trick. When you use this shortcut to cut footage, any footage to the right will move over into the empty space.

Command + S - Save

What list of shortcuts would be complete without the most important one? Command + S will save your project. Premiere will auto-save every so often, but it’s a good habit to get into pressing Command + S every few minutes!