Modifying shortcuts in After Effects is a surprisingly tedious and unintuitive task. There is no way to do it from within our interface as in Premiere Pro (Premiere Pro > Keyboard Shortcuts) or Cinema 4D (Window/Layout > Command Manager).

Modifying the shortcuts file

You will have to manually edit the Adobe After Effects Shortcuts file with a text editor such as notepad or better Sublime Text.

Here’s the paths where the files will be located:

• OS X: ~/Library/Preferences/Adobe/After Effects [version]/
• Windows: \Users[username]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\After Effects [version]\

As stated on top of the file, modify at your own risk. You might want to back up the file before starting to modify it.

Once you’re done, you can take this file to your Dropbox to copy it on multiple computers if you use more than one workstation.

Using KeyedUp

Jeff Almasol made a cool little package of various scripts for After Effects. One of them is Keyed Up, which gives the opportunity to create custom shortcuts. The script does exactly what it should and it does it well.

A good knowledge of shortcuts will take your After Effects skills to a higher level but being able to make shortcuts as you’d want them will really make After Effects feel like home.