Reference
Keyboard shortcuts
Shadow Browser is built to be driven without touching it. The hotkeys below work from anywhere on your machine, so you can hide the window, grab text, or switch into interview mode while another app has focus — no clicking on a window that is meant to stay out of the way.
Start with these four
Enough to run a whole session
Panic hide
Window gone, from any app. Press again to bring it back.
Interview mode
Same window becomes the interview copilot, and back.
Ask for an answer
In an interview session, drafts a spoken reply on demand.
Settings
Rebind anything, and see your remaining access time.
Using a Mac? Switch the toggle above; every Alt becomes Option.
Window and stealth
These work from anywhere on your machine, even when another app has focus. That is the point: you can hide the window without clicking it first.
Hide or show the window
The fastest way out. The window disappears from the screen and the taskbar; press it again and it comes back on top with the same page and opacity. If click-through is on, showing it will not steal focus from what you were doing.
Toggle click-through
Makes your mouse pass straight through the window to whatever is behind it, so you can keep it on screen over other work and still click that work. The window keeps tracking where your pointer is, so it comes back responsive the moment you switch it off.
Decrease opacity
Fades the window in 5% steps down to 20%. Pair with click-through to leave a readable page sitting over your work.
Increase opacity
Back up in 5% steps to fully opaque.
Capture and text grabbing
A capture area is a rectangle you drag once and then reuse. The first capture asks you to draw it; after that the same area is remembered until you change it.
Set the capture area
Dims the screen so you can drag a new rectangle. Press Esc to cancel and keep the old one. Do this when you move to a different window or a second monitor.
Copy the capture area as an image
Screenshots your saved area straight to the clipboard, ready to paste. No file is written to disk and no save dialog appears.
Copy text out of the capture area
Reads the text inside the area and copies it as text instead of a picture — useful for a code block, an error message, or a question you cannot select with the mouse.
Modes and settings
Switching modes reuses the window you already have. Nothing new opens, nothing changes size or position, so a screen share sees no event.
Switch between interview and browser mode
Flips the same window into the interview copilot and back. Your browsing tab is left where it was, so you can bounce between them mid-call.
Open ChatGPT
Loads chatgpt.com in the current tab. It also un-hides the window and turns click-through off first, so you can start typing immediately.
Open settings
Where you rebind every shortcut on this page, and check your remaining access time.
During an interview session
These are plain keys, not chords, and they are fixed rather than rebindable. They only fire while an interview session is on screen and never while your cursor is in a text field, so typing into the job description is safe.
Ask for an answer
Reads the recent transcript and drafts a spoken-format reply to whatever was just asked. Nothing fires on its own — you decide when you want help, so the app never talks over you.
Next chunk
With Chunk mode on, the answer arrives one spoken piece at a time. This reveals the next piece when you have finished saying the current one.
Previous chunk
Steps back a piece if you lost your place or want to repeat a point.
Resize the transcript pane
Tab to the divider between the answer and the transcript, then widen or narrow it with the arrow keys. Hold Shift for bigger jumps.
Backing out
Esc is always the way out of whatever the app has put on screen, and it never changes a setting on the way.
Cancel the capture overlay
Backs out of drawing a capture area without changing the one you already saved.
Close settings or the profile menu
While you are recording a new binding, Esc cancels the recording instead and leaves the old shortcut alone.
Changing a shortcut
Every global hotkey above is a default, not a fixed rule. If one clashes with something you already use, rebind it.
- 01
Open Settings with Alt+/, click the shortcut you want to change, then press the new combination. It saves as soon as you press it.
- 02
Every global hotkey needs at least one modifier such as Alt or Ctrl. A bare letter would be swallowed everywhere on your machine, including in other apps' text fields.
- 03
If the combination is already taken by another Shadow action, the app names the conflict and keeps your old binding.
- 04
If another program grabbed the combination first, Windows gives it to that program and Shadow shows a warning in the status bar. Pick a different key.
- 05
Your bindings live in a local hotkeys.json on that machine. They are not synced between computers.
Nothing to memorise yet?
The full list is always in the app under Settings, and the free 1-day Trial is enough to try every shortcut on this page.