# Is there a keyboard shortcut to de-focus the current cell?

**URL:** <https://talk.observablehq.com/t/is-there-a-keyboard-shortcut-to-de-focus-the-current-cell/234>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [February 3, 2018, 6:26pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/is-there-a-keyboard-shortcut-to-de-focus-the-current-cell/234 "2018-02-03T18:26:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Peeja](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/peeja/32/1425_2.png) [@Peeja](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/Peeja)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2018, 6:26pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/is-there-a-keyboard-shortcut-to-de-focus-the-current-cell/234/1 "2018-02-03T18:26:52Z")

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I haven’t found a way to de-focus the current cell, so that no cell is being edited and all code is hidden (except pinned cells), without using the mouse. Am I missing a shortcut? If not, can we get one?

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**Author:** ![tom](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/tom/32/2262_2.png) [@tom](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/tom)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 6:44pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/is-there-a-keyboard-shortcut-to-de-focus-the-current-cell/234/2 "2018-02-05T18:44:29Z")

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There isn’t one yet, but we should definitely add one! Probably `escape` will do the trick, mirrors some native inputs, vim, Discourse, and other systems.

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**Author:** ![Peeja](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/peeja/32/1425_2.png) [@Peeja](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/Peeja)\
**Post date:** [February 5, 2018, 10:21pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/is-there-a-keyboard-shortcut-to-de-focus-the-current-cell/234/3 "2018-02-05T22:21:12Z")

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`escape` is what I pressed to try to de-focus, so that sounds good to me. 🙂

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**Author:** ![jjimenez](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/jjimenez/32/237_2.png) [@jjimenez](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/jjimenez)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 3:30am UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/is-there-a-keyboard-shortcut-to-de-focus-the-current-cell/234/4 "2018-02-14T03:30:54Z")

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For future reference for everyone who sees this now, the functionality to press escape to defocus a cell has been implemented.

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**Author:** ![tom](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/tom/32/2262_2.png) [@tom](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/tom)\
**Post date:** [February 14, 2018, 5:10am UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/is-there-a-keyboard-shortcut-to-de-focus-the-current-cell/234/5 "2018-02-14T05:10:46Z")

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Oh yes, we implemented this and forgot to mention it 🙂 sorry about that.