How KeyJump works

The basics

KeyJump replaces your new tab with a keyboard launcher. You give every site a key; pressing it opens the site. Related sites live in folders (which have keys too), and any site with a search box can become a search shortcut that takes a term.

Everything works locally, without an account — your shortcuts live in your browser. Signing in adds safe sync across devices, nothing more.

Keys & jumping

With the search box empty, keys act instantly: press g and the shortcut (or folder) on g opens. Hold Alt to open a shortcut in a new tab instead. Keys are case-sensitive — m and M are two different slots, so a folder fits 62 entries (a–z, A–Z, 0–9).

Choosing where focus goes

Settings → Behavior → New-tab focus decides what a fresh tab feels like: Browser bar keeps the address bar focused like a normal new tab (press Esc to hand the keys to KeyJump), Window makes keys jump immediately, Search bar makes typing search immediately.

Folders

A folder is a group of shortcuts with its own key. Press the folder's key to step inside, then the next key: g m is Gmail if your Google folder is on g. Esc or Backspace walks back out. Folders nest as deep as you like.

On the start page, folders appear as a chip row; their contents show as groups underneath (or mixed into one list — Settings → Layout → Nested items). Drag tiles to reorder, drag a tile onto a folder chip to file it inside.

Keeping big folders compact

Items shown per folder (Settings → Layout) caps how many shortcuts each group shows — the rest folds into a “+N more” tile that opens the folder. Any folder can override this for itself: open its edit dialog (the ⋮ on its chip or group header) → “Items shown on the parent view”.

Searching

Press / (or just start typing, when unbound characters are free) and KeyJump searches everything: titles, folders, URLs — and key paths: typing gs surfaces the item that lives on g → s, because the keys you assigned are the fastest vocabulary you have.

↑ ↓ move through results, Enter opens, Ctrl+Enter opens in a new tab.

Free text searches the web

When nothing matches, Enter sends your text to the default search engine (Settings → Behavior — your own search shortcuts and built-in suggestions like Google or DuckDuckGo are both offered). So the box is never a dead end: type anything, hit Enter, and you're searching.

Search shortcuts

A search shortcut is a URL with a %s placeholder — youtube.com/results?search_query=%s. Activating it asks for a term and opens the results. Three ways to run one:

• Press its key — y locks the box into “Search YouTube” mode; type the term, Enter. Recent searches appear underneath; Backspace on the empty box (or Esc) unlocks.
• Command syntax — type keys plus the term in one go: gs capybara (or g s capybara) runs the g → s search with “capybara”. The command shows as the first result row.
• Tab to accept — Tab on a search result locks that engine in, keeping what you typed; on a bookmark it simply opens it.

Recent searches are shared with your account across devices (and with KeyJump v1). Hover a recent to remove it, or clear the whole history from the list.

Start views

Two ways to start: the shortcut grid (everything visible) or search only — a clean page with just the bar, your folder chips and one-tap shortcuts. Flip anytime with . or the switch in the navbar. Keys, search and commands work identically in both.

Layout

• Nested items: grouped under folder headers, or one flat list.
• Items shown per folder: 3 / 6 / 9 / all, with per-folder overrides.
• Folder widths: each group can be full, half or third width — the header button cycles one folder, the button next to “sort” aligns all of them at once.
• Tile width & density: how wide tiles are and how tightly they pack.

Make it yours

Settings → Appearance is the fun part: themes (Fjord is the default), a custom accent, and stackable background layers — a wallpaper (pick from the gallery, upload your own, or “Surprise me” for a random one per tab), the animated aurora, and a pattern (dots, grid, stars, mesh). Animation pace goes from calm to lively, backgrounds can be fixed for a parallax scroll, and surfaces can be solid, glass or gradient with adjustable opacity.

Uploaded wallpapers are compressed in your browser before upload and cached on device — new tabs never wait for the network.

On any page

With the extension, the launcher isn't just the new tab:

• Alt+K opens the full launcher as an overlay on the page you're on — same shortcuts, same keys.
• Alt+Shift+K saves the current page. If it's a search results page, KeyJump offers the reusable search instead of a frozen bookmark — the term becomes %s automatically.

Both shortcuts are rebindable at chrome://extensions/shortcuts.

Sync & account

KeyJump is local-first: no account, no server involved. Sign in (email, Google or GitHub) and your whole setup syncs as one document. Sync is two-way and safe: edits push automatically, and if this device and the cloud ever diverge, nothing is overwritten — you choose which side wins. Explicit “Upload” / “Download” actions are in the account menu.

Coming from KeyJump v1? The account menu offers a one-click import of your pages, folders, bookmarks and searches — your v1 data stays untouched.

Key reference

Your data

Settings → Data exports your whole document as JSON, imports one back, or resets to the starter set. Without an account nothing ever leaves your browser; with one, only what's needed for sync is stored — see the privacy policy.