How can I indent multiple lines in Xcode?

Question

When I select multiple lines of code and want to indent them as usual with TAB key, it just deletes them all. I come from Eclipse where I always did it that way. How's that done in Xcode? I hope not line by line ;)

It's funny because I'm pretty sure I was able to use Tab for right indent before. It just one day stopped working... — Dmitry, Jan 21 '15 at 23:56

score 936 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 27 '11 at 12:36

936

The keyboard shortcuts are ⌘+] for indent and ⌘+[ for un-indent.

In Xcode's preferences window, click the Key Bindings toolbar button. The Key Bindings section is where you customize keyboard shortcuts.

edited Nov 27 '11 at 12:36

Abizern

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answered May 06 '09 at 14:47

JWD

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Note that these are commonly used Mac OS X key bindings thus you can indent using CMD-] and CMD-[ in, for example, Mail.app. – Gregory Cosmo Haun Jun 15 '10 at 23:57
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Some apps that also run on other OSs use TAB and SHIFT+TAB instead, like eclipse and any derivatives – Aram Kocharyan Feb 09 '12 at 06:50
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Additionally, Ctrl + I reindents your entire code in the active editor based on your text-editing preferences in Xcode. – Ozgur Vatansever Jul 24 '12 at 07:36
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Thanks for that tip - I didn't know that. Frustratingly, on German keyboards, there is no [ or ] key - so to indent, you actually have to hold CMD+ALT+6 to indent. God, I miss Visual Studio sometimes... – Mike Gledhill Aug 04 '13 at 19:43
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French keyboards should be the worse I think: ctrl+alt+shift+')'. Four stupid keys to indent a few lines. That's just as bad as it can be. – Aurelien Ribon Dec 04 '13 at 13:53
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Haha, with a Swiss (FR-CH or DE-CH) keyboard it is Cmd+Shift+Alt+6, and 5 to unindent... could not be worse. – Pierre Henry Oct 07 '14 at 10:17
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I am going to abandon XCode as soon as Appcode gets its act together with Swift. For people who have not used IntelliJ IDEs, I feel very sorry! – inder Jan 21 '15 at 21:45
Swedish: CMD+ALT+8 and CMD+ALT+9 – karlingen Dec 21 '15 at 08:54
Coming from windows into os x I wish I would had known this days ago. – Micah Montoya Dec 07 '16 at 15:26
Intuitive. Not. – Fredrik Johansson Jan 11 '17 at 13:56
@FredrikJohansson I was just thinking that this is (almost) a universal code editor shortcuts standard. 800+ points just for answering this question!? o_O Fair enough. – James Bedford Jul 05 '17 at 18:49

score 65 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 19 '13 at 11:50

65

Select your code to reindent, then Go to

Editor -> Structure -> Re-Indent

edited Dec 19 '13 at 11:50

Praveenkumar

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answered Nov 12 '11 at 22:32

JavierGiovannini

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-1: The question was how to indent a block of lines, not on how to have it indented automatically by XCode. IMHO, this is a big difference. – Atmocreations May 03 '15 at 16:34
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not the correct answer, but it's a useful reminder anyway! – FredericK Oct 21 '15 at 16:14
Don't forget to '⌘ + A' before doing it – OhadM Dec 27 '17 at 10:57

score 48 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 19 '13 at 11:50

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⌘ + [ and ⌘ + ] are the equivalents to shift+tab in Xcode.

edited Dec 19 '13 at 11:50

Praveenkumar

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answered May 06 '09 at 14:46

Nik

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It does apply to multiple lines if you have multiple lines selected at the time. – Nik Jun 13 '12 at 16:20

score 39 · Answer 4 · edited Mar 10 '16 at 08:15

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Here are the shortcuts, to format the code in XCode

Format entire code (entire class/controller)

Select the entire code and press control+I on mac to format your code.
Format particular block of code

Select the code and press:
- ⌘+] for right move (indent)
- ⌘+[ for left move (un-indent)

Note: as per @JavierGiovannini sugesstion you can do using Editor Menu option

Select your code and navigate to Editor > Structure > Re-Indent

edited Mar 10 '16 at 08:15

Community

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answered Aug 16 '13 at 06:01

swiftBoy

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1. It should be Ctrl + I – JBaczuk Oct 02 '15 at 19:52
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It is ctrl + i !!! The letters l (lowercase L) and I (uppercase i) look equal! Please use lowercase. I'm unable to edit this post due to SO's inexplicable 6-chars restriction. – Display Name Apr 05 '17 at 07:04

score 21 · Answer 5 · answered Mar 01 '18 at 16:14

21

First, select all code using command+a

Second, hold key ctr and then press i

the whole selected code will nicely indent.

answered Mar 01 '18 at 16:14

Chowdhury Md Rajib Sarwar

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Aashish · Answer 6 · 2022-03-15T07:02:19.587

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Multiline Indentation Shortcut key:

ctrl + i

NOTE: Please select codes to Re-indent and press 'control' and 'i' on your mac.

edited Mar 15 '22 at 07:02

answered Feb 27 '20 at 17:23

Aashish

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score 12 · Answer 7 · answered Nov 17 '13 at 05:49

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Another way to quickly reformat indenting is a quick cut and paste. ⌘+x and ⌘+v. I often find it faster than ⌘+[ or ⌘+] as you can do it with one hand (versus two) and it will reformat to the correct indent level in one shot.

answered Nov 17 '13 at 05:49

Joel

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IMO, you should compare it to `⌘`+`I` which "has it indented automatically by XCode", not just "indent a block of lines". – Franklin Yu Feb 06 '16 at 04:45
This also works for us that does not work on an american keyboard :) – Christoffer May 10 '17 at 11:17

MD SHAHIDUL ISLAM · Answer 8 · 2014-12-03T03:46:32.740

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If you use synergy (to share one keyboard for two PCs) and PC(MAC) in which you are using xcode is slave, and master PC is Windows PC

keyboard shortcuts are alt+] for indent and alt+[ for un-indent.

Update:

But from synergy version 1.5 working ⌘+[ for indent and ⌘+] for un-indent

edited Dec 03 '14 at 03:46

answered Jun 20 '13 at 12:28

MD SHAHIDUL ISLAM

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score 7 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 18 '17 at 20:54

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In Xcode 9, you can finally use Tab and Shift+Tab to indent multiple lines of code. Yay!

answered Sep 18 '17 at 20:54

phatmann

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score 3 · Answer 10 · answered Oct 14 '15 at 00:45

Select "Tab key: Indents always" in Preferences->Text Editing->Indentation Then you can indent a single line or a selection of lines by pressing TAB or SHIFT+TAB Sadly this removes altogether the possibility to insert tabs where you want, and conflict badly with the tab key being used to switch between "autocompletion fields".

I guess we need more tab keys in the keyboard, one is not enough...

score 2 · Answer 11 · edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

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To all frenchs Xcoders around, the default keybindings are as follow :

Indent selection:

⇧ + ⌘ + ⌥ + )

Unindent selection:

⇧ + ⌘ + ⌥ + (

edited Jun 20 '20 at 09:12

Community

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answered Oct 22 '15 at 14:01

Neimsz

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score 2 · Answer 12 · answered Feb 19 '16 at 18:13

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For those of you with Spanish keyboard on mac this are the shortcuts:

⌘ + ⌥ + [ for un-indent

⌘ + ⌥ + ] for indent

answered Feb 19 '16 at 18:13

Jorge Casariego

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score 2 · Answer 13 · answered Jul 17 '20 at 05:36

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For code indentation first select the lines of code then press:

command + alt + [

command + alt + ]

answered Jul 17 '20 at 05:36

Ali Raza

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score 1 · Answer 14 · answered Jun 20 '15 at 10:15

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here all the important shortcuts from another question answered on stack overflow here

answered Jun 20 '15 at 10:15

Mostafa Sultan

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OlDor · Answer 15 · 2015-12-10T23:01:44.557

If you want to remap the standard Xcode's ⌘+[ to TAB, you can do the following:

Install a program called "Karabiner".
Go to Preferences ~> "Misc and Uninstall"
In "Custom Setting" section click on the "Open private.xml" button

Open the file and replace its content with the following code:

<?xml version="1.0"?> 
<root>
    <item>
        <name>Tab instead of Command+[</name>
        <identifier>private.swap_tab_and_cmnd+[</identifier>
        <autogen>
            __KeyToKey__
            KeyCode::TAB, ModifierFlag::NONE,
            KeyCode::BRACKET_RIGHT, ModifierFlag::COMMAND_L | ModifierFlag::NONE
        </autogen>
    </item> 
</root>

Go to Preferences ~> "Change Key" ~> click on "Reload XML" button
Put a tick in the checkbox which is called "Tab instead of Command+["
Enjoy

PS: Please note that this setting works globally on your machine, not just in Xcode. However, I am sure that google might help you to find a solution how to customize it even further, applying the changes only to Xcode.

score 1 · Answer 16 · answered Jun 10 '17 at 15:14

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Danish Keyboard

Unindent: ⌘ + ⌥ + 8

Indent: ⌘ + ⌥ + 9

answered Jun 10 '17 at 15:14

Jan Aagaard

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score 1 · Answer 17 · answered Feb 27 '18 at 10:08

Basically ⌘ [ for left multiple indent and ⌘ ] right multiple indent.

For TR keyboard you can left multiple indent with ⌘ ⎇ 8 and right multiple indent with ⌘ ⎇ 9.Because both 8 and 9 are ALT characters of the these nums.Or if you have a keyboard which has [ or ] characters are belong to ALT(⎇) property so you can use ⌘ ⎇ KEYBOARD CHARACTER

score 0 · Answer 18 · answered Apr 10 '18 at 00:23

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Since I didn't see an update to this question for the current version of Xcode, I thought I'd add that in Xcode 9.3, Tab works for indenting selected line(s) of text as well as moving from one autocomplete field to another.

answered Apr 10 '18 at 00:23

Jim Hillhouse

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Mostafa Shamin Yeasar · Answer 19 · 2022-08-19T04:16:03.703

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Select the lines and press Ctrl+i from keyboard.

You will have the lines indented.

edited Aug 19 '22 at 04:16

answered Aug 11 '22 at 05:39

Mostafa Shamin Yeasar

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score -1 · Answer 20 · answered Oct 16 '18 at 07:54

-1

Tab for Indent SHIFT + Tab Re-indent

answered Oct 16 '18 at 07:54

Asim Khan

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score -1 · Answer 21 · answered Nov 27 '11 at 12:13

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In Xcode 4.2 auto-indenting is pretty good. You can now indent a selection of code by pressing the Tab key. I find that Xcode generally formats code really well automatically, and you rarely have to move things around yourself. I find it faster to select a piece of code, right-click and choose Structure -> Re-indent if some code looks messy.

answered Nov 27 '11 at 12:13

machineboy

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i think you have not used any other code editor except xcode in your life. xCode autoCodeFormatting is the worst. – Add080bbA Nov 26 '14 at 15:51
Doesn't work in XCode 8.3. Don't know if it ever did. – Steve Jul 05 '17 at 20:48

How can I indent multiple lines in Xcode?

21 Answers21

Indent selection:

Unindent selection:

Linked

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