I have set several shortcuts in my .emacs file. The most useful are: C-tab to switch between the R command line and the file (similar to josh answer, but much faster): (global-set-key [C-tab] 'other-window) Control and up/down arrow keys to search history with matching what you've already typed: (define-key comint-mode-map [C-up] 'comint-previous-matching-input-from-input) (define-key comint-mode-