53

I want to hold the 'delete' key and delete characters more quickly than OSX Mavericks does by default. Something like Ubuntu, which delete really quickly. Any suggestions?!

Hennes
  • 65,142
jake9115
  • 1,219

3 Answers3

89

Under System Preferences, click Keyboard, and adjust the "Key Repeat" speed (see below). Tested in Word and it does affect how quickly the delete key deletes characters when held down.

enter image description here

Alternatively, in the terminal you can enter 

defaults write NSGlobalDomain KeyRepeat -int 0
which is the fastest setting. The fastest exposed by System Preferences is 2 (log out and back in to see changes). See here: Mac OSX Hints

Additionally, 

defaults write NSGlobalDomain InitialKeyRepeat -int 15
can be used to change the delay before the repeat starts (default is 15).

For a graphical solution, see keyremap4macbook, detailed here.

KernelSanders
  • 1,166
12

You can also hold the Option key while pressing delete. This deletes whole words instead of characters. Similar functionality to holding Control while pressing backspace in windows.

D Schlachter
  • 1,998
matt
  • 121
  • 3
    For some reason, this doesn't work inside the terminal on my mac. Option+arrow-keys moves the cursor a word a time, but option+delete doesn't delete a word a time. Oddly, it does inside this editor window. – r12 Oct 30 '17 at 16:57
  • Great for other apps but doesn't work in Terminal. – Joshua Pinter Apr 04 '19 at 22:39
5

esc+delete should work on Mac terminal

Roxana
  • 51