Keyboard shortcuts for the ChatGPT desktop app

The shortcut most people are hunting for is the global one: the combination that brings ChatGPT up over whatever you are already doing, without switching windows. Here is what it is by default on each platform, how to change it, and the usual reason it stops working. The hardware point at the end is a narrow one, and it is the case the Whisper Key was built around.

What is the ChatGPT desktop hotkey on Mac and Windows?

On macOS the default is Option+Space, which opens the small companion window over the app you are in. On Windows the default is Alt+Space. Both are set inside the app's own settings and both can be changed there, so before assuming a page is wrong, check whether yours is still on the default.

My ChatGPT hotkey has stopped working. Why?

Nearly always because something else already owns that combination. Global shortcuts are first come, first served, and a launcher, a clipboard manager or a window manager will take one without telling you. On Windows, Alt+Space has an old and deeply held meaning: it opens the window menu of the focused application. On macOS, Option+Space collides with input source switching and with several popular launchers.

The fix is to give the app a combination nothing else wants rather than to fight over a popular one. Pick an unusual modifier pair, set it in settings, then test it from inside a full screen application, which is where a broken global shortcut usually shows itself first.

What about the shortcuts inside the app?

These move more often than the global one, so the honest advice is to read the list the app ships with rather than a page like this. In most versions Cmd+/ on macOS or Ctrl+/ on Windows brings up the shortcut panel, and it is reachable from settings as well. The ones worth learning are new chat, focus the composer and toggle the sidebar. The rest you will use rarely enough that opening the list is quicker than remembering.

Is there a push to talk key for voice?

Not in the sense a gaming client means it. Voice input is a control in the composer that you start and then stop, rather than a key you hold down while you speak. Your operating system's dictation is a separate thing again, with its own shortcut in system settings, and it types into whichever field has focus, including this one.

The difference matters if you dictate prompts all day. Starting and stopping a control with the mouse is a hand journey each time, and the reason people keep asking for push to talk is that holding something down is easier to think about than remembering whether you are still recording.

Which of these deserves a dedicated key?

One: the thing you do at the start of every interaction. If you summon the app dozens of times a day, that combination is worth moving somewhere your hand can find without looking, and it is worth choosing keys no other program will steal. The in app shortcuts are not worth the trouble, because your hands are already on the keyboard by the time you need them.

If the start of your interaction is speaking rather than typing, that is the case we built for: Whisper Key, a handheld you hold to your mouth and then put down.