Controls

This is an overview of all controls used in Minetest.

Changing controls

There are two ways to change the controls: Either by using the options menu accessible inside the game or by editing minetest.conf. See minetest.conf.example to learn the setting names. Note that some controls are fixed and cannot be changed at all.

Game controls

Action	Default key	Changable in-game?	Changable in minetest.conf?	Comment
Movement
Look around	Mouse movement	No	No
Move forwards	W	Yes	Yes
Move to the left	A	Yes	Yes
Move to the right	D	Yes	Yes
Move backwards	S	Yes	Yes
Toggle fast mode	J	Yes	Yes	See Movement modes. Requires “fast” privilege
Toggle fly mode	K	Yes	Yes	See Movement modes. Requires “fly” privilege
Toggle noclip mode	H	Yes	Yes	See Movement modes. Requires “noclip” privilege
Move fast	E	Yes	Yes	Only works if fast mode is on. Oddly, this is also called the “Use” key
Jump	Space	Yes	Yes	This is used when you are neither at a ladder, inside a liquid nor using fast mode
Sneak	Shift	Yes	Yes	This is used when you are neither at a ladder, inside a liquid nor using fast mode
Move up	Space	Yes	Yes	This is used when you are at a ladder, inside a liquid or using fast mode
Move down	Shift	Yes	Yes	This is used when you are at a ladder, inside a liquid or using fast mode
World interaction
Attack / mine / collect item	Left mouse button	No	No
Use / build	Right mouse button	No	No	If the pointed thing is usable (example: Chest), you use it, otherwise you attempt to build at this block
Build	Shift+Right mouse button	No	No	Use this to build at usable blocks
Select next/previous item in hotbar	Mouse wheel	No	No
Select item in hotbar directly	0-9	No	No
Drop entire wielded itemstack	Q	Yes	Yes
Drop single item of wielded itemstack	Shift+Q	Yes	Yes
Camera
Select camera	F7	No	Yes	Available cameras are (in this order): first person view, third person view from the back, third person view from the front
Toggle cinematic mode	F8	Yes	Yes	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
Zoom in at the crosshair	Z	Yes	Yes	Only available in Minetest versions coming after 0.4.14. Requires the “zoom” privilege
Heads-up Display
Show/hide inventory menu	I	Yes	Yes
Show/hide HUD	F1	No	Yes
Show/hide chat log and application name	F2	No	Yes
Toggle minimap	F9	No	Yes	There are two modes available: Surface and radar, in 3 different zoom levels
Toggle minimap shape (square or circle)	Shift+F9	No	Yes
Open/close console/big chat log	F10	Yes	Yes
Abort / close window / open pause menu / quit Minetest	Esc	No	No
Server interaction
Open chat window	T	Yes	Yes	You need the “shout” privilege to chat
Start issuing a server command	/	Yes	Yes
Technical
Take a PNG screenshot	F12	No	Yes
Toggle far view	R	Yes	Yes	Far view disables fog entirely and allows viewing far away, may cause massive FPS drop
Increase minimal viewing distance	+	No	Yes
Decrease minimal viewing distance	-	No	Yes
Enable/disable fog	F3	No	Yes
Enable/disable camera update	F4	No	Yes	Only useful for developers. If disabled, the landscape drawn around you will not be updated as you look around. This key works only in debugging versions of Minetest, or by editing minetest.conf
Enable/disable debug display	F5	No	Yes	Also shows your coordinates
Enable/disable profiler	F6	No	Yes	Only useful for developers
Write stacktraces into the file “debug.txt”	P	Yes	Yes	Only useful for developers

Inventory controls

See Inventory#Controls.

Console controls

See Console.