Is there any shortcut to select the current line in Visual Studio?

Question

I couldn't find such feature in VS's shortcut list. Is there anyway?

Unless

Home, Shift+End? :) – Haddad

@AssafLavie Sometimes you have to press "Home" 2 times and sometimes one, so is not idempotent (aka can't use muscle memory) so is less than ideal – Eelpout

Maybe consider updating the selected answer as this feature (along others) is now available in Visual Studio. – Harri

Answer 1

If you want to copy a line, simply place cursor somewhere in that line and hit CTRL+C

To cut an entire line CTRL+X

@Sean found what I was looking for:

To disable this default behavior remove the checkmark (or check to re-enable)

Apply cut or copy commands to blank lines when there is no selection

Accessed from the menu bar: Tools | Options | Text Editor | All languages

You can also enter copy into the options search box for quicker access

[Tested in VS2008, 2010, 2017]

Ardoin

I hate the CTRL+X behaviour, sometimes I push CTRL+Z but miss and now I'm missing the whole line. My fault, but still. – Quartering

@todda.speot.is: disable "apply cut or copy commands to blank lines when there is no selection" in Tools | Options | Text Editor | All languages. – Perdition

The whole point of this is not to use the mouse I don't understand why this is the most voted answer – Igbo

@ Kepol : who says you need to use the mouse? – Ardoin

This is not what the question asked, instead this is specifically to cut and copy. – Eelpout

@Ivan Castellanos: and why would you select a line if you weren't going to do something with it? LOL – Ardoin

@MitchWheat The things one wants do with multiple lines arent limited to copy and cut, besides how do I cut MULTIPLE lines with this method? you can't – Eelpout

@ Ivan Castellano: your response has nothing to do with the question asked. – Ardoin

@MitchWheat Neither does yours, the question never mentions copy or pasting but somehow this got selected as the "accepted" answer – Eelpout

I refer you to my previous comments. Moving along.... – Ardoin

Answer 2

Clicking the line 3 times does the trick

Cordle

Answer 3

If you have ReSharper you could use

Ctrl + W - Extend Selection

Sidenote: You may have to use it multiple times depending on the context of your present text cursor position.

Roundup

Answer 4

If you click once on the row number the entire row will be selected.

Excusatory

Answer 5

If you want to select a line or lines you can use the combination of ctrl + E then U. This combination also works for uncommenting a complete line or lines. This combination looks somewhat strange to work with, but it will get habituated very soon :)

You can also use Ctrl + X to cut an entire line. Similarly, you can use Ctrl + C to copy an entire line. As long as you don't have anything selected, these commands will work on the entire line.

Ixion

Neat! I never realized the 'uncomment' hotkey can also be used for that. My search-replace on a single line suddenly became 10% faster. – Benedictbenedicta

I use Crtl + K, C and Ctrl + K, U all the time, but good call on Ctrl + E, U – Synchroscope

This doesn't work too well when the line is a comment line. – Bertabertasi

Answer 6

To select the whole line use the below shorcut

Shift + Alt + E

Johppa

Out of all the answers on this page, this is the only one that worked for me. Maybe it's because I'm using the Visual C++ mapping scheme? Either way, the command to select a line is Edit.ExpandSelectionToEntireLine if you want to look it up and/or change it in the Tools>Customize>Keyboard or Tools>Options>Environment\Keyboard menu. – Gastrotrich

Thank you, this is the answer to the main question. – Stringfellow

Answer 7

• Clicking anywhere on the line and (CRTL + C) will copy entire line.
• Clicking three time in quick succession also selects entire line.

Tedman

Answer 8

There is a simple way of doing it, simple use Home or End button to reach the start or end of line, and then use home + shift or end + Shift depending on where your cursor is. Hope it helps.

Hinojosa

Answer 9

Use the following:

Shift + End If cursor is at beginning of line.

or

Shift + Home If cursor is at the end of the line.

Note: If you use resharper

Ctrl + w while the cursor is positioned on the line you want to select

Wrier

Answer 10

Other answers require either using a mouse or hitting more than one combination. So I've created a macro for those who want a VSCode-like Ctrl+L behaviour. It can select multiple lines, and that's useful for moving blocks of code.

To use it, install Visual Commander extension for macros: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=SergeyVlasov.VisualCommander

Then create a new command, select C# as a language and paste this code:

using EnvDTE;
using EnvDTE80;

public class C : VisualCommanderExt.ICommand
{
    public void Run(EnvDTE80.DTE2 DTE, Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.Package package) 
    {
        var ts = DTE.ActiveDocument.Selection as EnvDTE.TextSelection;
        if (!ts.ActivePoint.AtStartOfLine)
            ts.StartOfLine();
        ts.LineDown(true, 1);
    }
}

Now you can assign a desired shortcut in preferences:

Tested in VS 2022.

Tenet

Got kind of used to Ctrl+L in sublime text editor and this solution works exactly like that, thanks. – Brendanbrenden

Answer 11

This won't solve the problem for Visual Studio, but if you're using Visual Studio Code you can use CTRL+L to select the line your cursor is currently on.

(If you're using Visual Studio, this will cut the line you're currently on—which may also be useful, but wasn't the question.)

Incommensurable

Answer 12

You can use CTRL + U . This shortcut is use also for uncomment.

You can change the shortcut on this feature. Go to Tools->Options->Environment->Keyboard->Edit.UncommentSelection and assign CTRL+W (same as Resharper) or you can use what shortcut do you want.

Ary

Answer 13

Just click in the left margin.

If you click in the margin just left of the Outline expansions [+][-] it will select the row.

You can also just click and drag to select multiple lines.
Necvetanov eluded to this in his answer above about clicking on the line number. This is right...but it just happens that the line number is in the margin.

Here is a whole list of the keyboard shortcuts Default keyboard shortcuts in Visual Studio

Radar

This is the only thing that was close. Thank you. – Tabescent

Answer 14

You can set a bind to the Edit.ExpandSelection command:

In the options. Click the shortcut until it selects the whole line.

The screenshot above is from the Edit > Advanced menu in Visual Studio 2022. I set this Alt+E, E shortcut myself and I don't remember if it's originally set to something or not.

Tellford

Answer 15

If you want to select full row Ctrl E + U

Peacoat

This doesn't work too well when the line is a comment line. – Bertabertasi

Answer 16

a work around for this:
ctrl+d = duplicate line
ctrl+l = copy line
ctrl+v = paste copied text

Dressingdown

Answer 17

You can enter, home then shift + end as well. What it will do is take you to the beginning of line then select the whole line till end. Or alternatively first enter end then shift + home

Philosopher

Answer 18

Simply by clicking on the line number that's being shown on the left in vs-code. just a single click and a line will get selected.

Roxyroy

Answer 19

In Mac, it is ⌘+L.

But if you have some specific conflicting keybindings, this won't work. In my case the VSCode Live Server extension auto registered a couple of bindings for these keys. I removed them and it worked.

Amiamiable

Answer 20

I assigned a shortcut key to the following functionality. I press the shortcut until it selects the whole current line:

Edit.SubwordExpandSelection

Gasser

Answer 21

While KulaGGin and Miltos already answer your specific question, allow me to give a more holistic update regarding word, line and block selection/navigation. At least in the Windows version of Visual Studio 2022 there are now various commands usable in the context of a text editor to perform selection:

• Edit.ExpandSelection (default: Shift + Alt + +)
• Edit.ContractSelection (default: Shift + Alt + -)
• Edit.ExpandSelectiontoContainingBlock (default: Shift + Alt + ´)
• Edit.ExpandSelectionToEntireLine (default: Shift + Alt + E)

For a more granular selection of subwords there are also:

• Edit.NextSubwordExtend (default: Ctrl+ Shift + Alt + RightArrow)
• Edit.PreviousSubwordExtend (default: Ctrl+ Shift + Alt + LeftArrow)
• Edit.SubwordExpandSelection (default: no shortcut)
• Edit.SubwordContractSelection (default: no shortcut)

There are also commands for navigating between subwords:

• Edit.NextSubword (default: Ctrl+ Alt + RightArrow)
• Edit.PreviousSubword (default: Ctrl+ Alt + LeftArrow)

If anyone needs to customize the shortcuts navigate to: Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Keyboard

Note that the Mac version might offer a completely different set of features.

Harri