How do I duplicate a line or selection within Visual Studio Code?

EditorVisual Studio-CodeKeyboard Shortcuts

Editor Problem Overview


Using Microsoft's Visual Studio Code, how do I duplicate a line of code and then move it up and down? (Similar to Sublime's cmd+shift+d behaviour)

It's a feature that I use constantly, and am struggling using Visual Studio Code without it.

Editor Solutions


Solution 1 - Editor

The commands your are looking for are editor.action.copyLinesDownAction and editor.action.copyLinesUpAction.

You can see the associated keybindings by picking: File > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts

Windows:

Shift+Alt+Down and Shift+Alt+Up

Mac:

Shift+Option+Down and Shift+OptionUp

Linux:

Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Down and Ctrl+Shift+Alt+Up

(Might need to use numpad Down and Up for Linux)

Furthermore, commands editor.action.moveLinesUpAction and editor.action.moveLinesDownAction are the ones to move lines and they are bound to Alt+Down and Alt+Up on Windows and Mac and Ctrl+Down and Ctrl+Up on Linux.

Solution 2 - Editor

You can find keyboard shortcuts from

> File > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts

Default Keyboard Shortcuts are,

Copy Lines Down Action : shift+alt+down

Copy Lines Up Action : shift+alt+up

Move Lines Up Action : alt+up

Move Lines Down Action : alt+down

Or you can override the keyboard shortcuts from > File > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts

And editing the keybindings.json

Example:

[    {        "key": "ctrl+d",        "command": "editor.action.copyLinesDownAction",        "when": "editorTextFocus"    },    {        "key": "ctrl+shift+up",        "command": "editor.action.moveLinesUpAction",        "when": "editorTextFocus"    },    {        "key": "ctrl+shift+down",        "command": "editor.action.moveLinesDownAction",        "when": "editorTextFocus"    }]

Solution 3 - Editor

It miss an answer to this question, "How to duplicate selection of code" Similar to Sublime's cmd/ctrl+shift+d or Jetbrains' cmd/ctrl+d behaviour.

Install plugin Duplicate selection or line from VS Code Marketplace

Duplicate selection or line VS Code plugin

This extension provides bindings for ctrl+d (Windows/Linux) and cmd+d (MacOS). To customize keyboard shortcuts Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts:

{
  "mac": "cmd+d",
  "key": "ctrl+d",
  "command": "geeebe.duplicateText",
  "when": "editorTextFocus"
}

Note : The shortcut does also the duplicate line so if you install it, remove your previous ctrl+d shortcut on copyLinesDownAction (if you did it before) otherwise duplicate selection can bug.

Solution 4 - Editor

In VScode, they call this Copy Line Up and Copy Line Down

From the menu, go to: > File > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts

Check already assigned keyboard shortcut for this, or adjust yours.

Sometimes the default assigned shortcut may not work, mostly because of OS.

In my Ubuntu, I adjusted this to: Ctrl+Shift+D

enter image description here

Solution 5 - Editor

In VSCode Ctrl+CCtrl+V duplicates the whole line below.

I prefer this to the accepted answer, because it only requires one hand to do this and feels way more natural.

The accepted answer will probably do it for most people, however Down sits the other side of the keyboard. So you have two options, use both hands on (Left Hand:L Shift+L Alt+ Right Hand:Up/Down), or with a single hand use the right R Shift+R Alt+Up/Down. The second option feels weird in my opinion. I'd rather use the option where my hand naturally sits on the keyboard, and if its one hand, even better.

Solution 6 - Editor

Try ALT+SHIFT+UP/DOWN

It worked for me!

Solution 7 - Editor

  • For Jetbrains IDE Users who migrated to VSCode.

  • Install(Anyone):

  1. JetBrains IDE Keymap: Extension
  2. vscode-intellij-idea-keybindings Extension (Preferred)
  • Use this Intellij Darcula Theme: Extension

  • The keymap has covered most of keyboard shortcuts of VS Code, and makes VS Code more 'JetBrains IDE like'.

  • Above extensions imports keybindings from JetBrains to VS Code. After installing the extension and restarting VS Code you can use VS Code just like IntelliJ IDEA, Webstorm, PyCharm, etc.

Solution 8 - Editor

For Windows :

To Copy Up - shift+alt+up

To Copy Down - shift+alt+down

For mac :

To Copy Up - shift+option+up

To Copy Down - shift+option+down

For linux :

To Copy Up - ctrl+shift+alt+8

To Copy Down - ctrl+shift+alt+2

Note : You may change your keyboard shortcuts keybinding for visual studio code by pressing ctrl+shift+p, then type open keyboard shortcut in the pallet and then hit enter so new file will be opened (Key board shortcut file) you can see all the shortcuts over their and can change keybindings by clicking twice over the respective keybinding and then by entering your own keybinding, finally hit enter.

Hope this will help somebody!

Solution 9 - Editor

Note that for Ubuntu users (<= 17.4), Unity uses CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + Arrow Key for moving programs across virtual workspaces, which conflicts with the VS Code shortcuts. You'll need to rebind editor.action.copyLinesDownAction and editor.action.copyLinesUpAction to avoid the conflict (or change your workspace keybindings).

For Ubuntu 17.10+ that uses GNOME, it seems that GNOME does not use this keybinding in the same way according to its documentation, though if someone using vanilla workspaces on 17.10 can confirm this, it might be helpful for future answer seekers.

Solution 10 - Editor

Simply go to the file -> preferences -> keyboard shortcuts There you can change any shortcut you like. search for duplicate and change it to whatever you always use in other editors. I changed to Ctrl+D

Solution 11 - Editor

Duplicate line: alt + shift + /

Move line up/down: alt + /

Solution 12 - Editor

If you coming from Sublime Text and do not want to relearn new key binding, you can use this extension for Visual Code Studio.

> Sublime Text Keymap for VS Code > >This extension ports the most popular Sublime Text keyboard shortcuts to Visual Studio Code. After installing the extension and restarting VS Code your favorite keyboard shortcuts from Sublime Text are now available.

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-vscode.sublime-keybindings

Solution 13 - Editor

This keymap will duplicate the current line if nothing is selected or duplicate the selected words.

  1. Access:

    File/Preferences/Keyboard shortcuts

  2. In the right top corner, click on Open Keyboard Shortcuts (JSON).

  3. Insert this keymap:

     {
       "key": "shift+alt+d",
       "command": "editor.action.duplicateSelection"
     }
    
  4. Use alt+arrows up/down to move the line (Default behaviour of VS Code).

Solution 14 - Editor

Direct line duplication (without the clipboard step) is proposed by the Contextual Duplicate extension.

It is mapped on ctrl+K D

Solution 15 - Editor

Problem

There seems to be a problem with the original "duplicate line down" shortcut on Ubuntu, mostly due to a conflict with an already existing workspace related shortcut on the operating system.

Workaround

However, an easy workaround is to simply CTRL+C (copies the entire line) and CTRL+V (pastes the copied line on to a new one)... Effectively, giving you the same end result.

Solution 16 - Editor

Ctrl + c + v press these keys together not separate for windows

Solution 17 - Editor

For those migrating from WebStorm/PhpStorm,

You could install IntelliJ IDEA Keybindings to keep using almost all the keyboard shortcuts as you did in Webstorm/Phpstorm.

So,

  • Duplicate lines => CTRL + D
  • Move a line/selection of code Up/Down => Ctrl + Shift + UP/DOWN

Also, here is a list of recommended VS Code extensions that will make your transition from WebStorm/Phpstorm much easier.

Solution 18 - Editor

For Fedora 29 workstation (Gnome 3.30.2) and Ubuntu users.

Unbind unnecessary left/right workspace keyboard combinations, list them by terminal

$ gsettings list-recursively | grep -E "org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings move-to-workspace-|org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-to-workspace-"

Unbind them

$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-to-workspace-left "[]"
$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-to-workspace-right "[]"
$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings move-to-workspace-left "[]"
$ gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings move-to-workspace-right "[]"

Reset duplicate shortcuts

  • Super+Pgdown/PgUp , Ctrl+Alt+DownArrow/UpArrow
  • Super+Shift+PgDown/PgUp , Ctrl+Alt+Shift+DownArrow/UpArrow

They can be easily reset to work with only one shortcut in Settings>Devices>Keyboard
Only type again Super+PgUp for "Move to workspace above" as an example.

enter image description here

Now with less duplicate shortcuts in fedora29 all vscode shortcuts for linux must work fine

Solution 19 - Editor

For Linux users: I noticed what on Linux you quite an often need to use win key. For Windows combo is:
ctrl + shift + alt + up

then for Linux is same just add win key:
ctrl + shift + win + alt + up

I noticed that in a few combos now. Say ctrl + alt + L locks Linux, but ctrl + win + alt + L for Intellij formats code. Under Windows is just ctrl + alt + L to format the code.

Solution 20 - Editor

in my last version Visual Studio Code 1.30.2 it wil be change automatically into


ctrl + D

Attributions

All content for this solution is sourced from the original question on Stackoverflow.

The content on this page is licensed under the Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.

Content TypeOriginal AuthorOriginal Content on Stackoverflow
QuestionChrisView Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - EditorBenjamin PaseroView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - EditormanuknView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - EditorAntoine FlouryView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - EditorNahidView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - EditorNick De BeerView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - EditoreildizView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - EditorSumit ShuklaView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - EditorAman Kumar GuptaView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - EditorDavid BodowView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 10 - EditorAmin NouraView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 11 - EditornCardotView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 12 - EditorcyberflyView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 13 - EditorSeraltoView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 14 - EditorCharlesBView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 15 - EditorGratefulView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 16 - EditorYatharth TiwariView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 17 - EditorNiket PathakView Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 18 - Editorchristianbueno.1View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 19 - Editormy-View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 20 - EditorBouchaib EnnakrView Answer on Stackoverflow