Controls

Controls

Most keyboard and controls can be changed in the “Change Keys” menu.

The controls marked with an asterisk can't be changed in this menu, you have to edit minetest.conf for this. The controls marked with two asterisks are fixed and can't be changed at all.

Movement

• Moving the mouse around**: Look around
• W: Move forwards
• A: Move to the left
• D: Move to the right
• S: Move backwards
• J: Toggle fast mode (requires “fast” privilege)
• K: Toggle fly mode (requires “fly” privilege)
• H: Toggle noclip mode, only works if fly mode is also on (requires “noclip” privilege)
• E: Move fast (only works if fast mode is on). Oddly, this is also called the “Use” key

While standing on solid ground

• Space: Jump
• Shift: Sneak (You walk slower and can't fall over the edge of a block)

While on a ladder, swimming in a liquid or fly mode is active

• Space: Move up
• Shift: Move down

World interaction

• Left mouse button**: Attack; mine blocks; collect items
• Right mouse button**: Use pointed block or object if applicable (e.g. open chest/furnace); build blocks otherwise
• Shift+Right mouse button: Build block (without using the pointed thing)
• Mouse wheel**: Select block/item in hotbar
• 0-9**: Select block/item in hotbar
• Q: Drop entire wielded itemstack
• Shift+Q: Drop single item of wielded itemstack
• I: Show/hide inventory menu

Inventory interaction

See Inventory#Controls.

Camera

• F7*: Toggle camera. Available are (in this order): first person view, third person view from the back, third person view from the front
• F8: Toggle cinematic mode. In cinematic mode, the camera will not immediately follow your movements, instead it will quickly “catch on”, so the movement of the camera looks a bit like the movement of an actual camera.
• Z: (Only available in Minetest versions coming after 0.4.14) Zoom in at the crosshair. This requires the player to have the “zoom” privilege.

Heads-Up Display

• Esc**: In the game: Abort / close current window / open pause menu. In the main menu: Quit Minetest.
• F1*: Show/hide HUD
• F2*: Show/hide chat and the text “Minetest” along with the version number at the upper left part of the screen
• F9*: Toggle minimap. There are two modes available, surface and radar, in different zoom levels.
• Shift+F9*: Toggle minimap shape (square or circle)
• F10: open/close console/chat log
• F12*: Take a screenshot (as a PNG image)

Server interaction

• T: Open chat window (You require the “shout” privilege to chat.)
• /: Start issuing a server command

Technical

• R*: Toggle far view (disables all fog and allows viewing far away, may cause massive FPS drop)
• + (numpad): Increase minimal viewing distance
• - (numpad): Decrease minimal viewing distance
• F3*: Enable/disable fog
• F4*: Enable/disable camera updates. Note: This key works only in debugging versions of Minetest, or by editing minetest.conf. Normal players don't need this feature.
• F5*: Enable/disable debug screen which also shows your coordinates
• F6*: Enable/disable profiler (only useful for developers)
• P: Write current stacktraces into the file “debug.txt”. This feature is only interesting for developers.

Footnotes

* Key assignment can only be changed in minetest.conf.
** Key assignment can not be changed.