Shortcuts and quick actions

Get your mouse and keyboard back, leave a stream with a controller, reach every action from the quick-action dial, and choose what each press does. Every key, chord and hold on this page is a default: change it under Settings → Input → Shortcuts. Mouse modes, touch and pen are on Mouse, touch and pen.

Getting your input backCopy Anchor Link

A stream captures your mouse and keyboard when it starts and whenever you click the video: your cursor disappears and keys go to the host.

A stream opens with a one-line hint naming the way to leave, for a few seconds. Exit hint, an advanced setting, turns it off.

Press the release shortcut again, or click the stream, to capture again. Switching to another app releases input and takes it back when you return. Keys and buttons you were holding are let go on the host, so nothing sticks. On Linux and Windows, controllers stop reaching the host too until you capture again.

Keyboard shortcutsCopy Anchor Link

On an iPad, ⌘⎋ and every ⌃⌥⇧ shortcut work while input is captured.

macOS: while input is captured, every other ⌘ chord goes to the host, ⌘Q included. Turn Capture system shortcuts off to keep them local. ⌘⎋ always stays with the Mac; press it, then ⌃⌘F, to leave fullscreen. ⌘Space, ⌘Tab, Mission Control and other apps' global shortcuts go to the host too, with no permission to grant.

Android: Android keeps Alt+Tab, the Windows key and the Language key for itself. To send them, turn on Punktfunk keyboard shortcuts under Android's Accessibility settings; the app offers this at launch when a keyboard is attached, and under Settings → Input → Keyboard shortcuts. On Android 13 and newer a build from outside the Play Store first needs Allow restricted settings on the app's info page. Without the service, Alt+` stands in for Alt+Tab. Ctrl+Space reaches the host from Android 13 on.

Muting your microphoneCopy Anchor Link

The mute lasts for the current stream and stops only the sending, so unmuting is instant. Each switch shows Microphone muted or Microphone live over the stream for a few seconds, with the stats overlay on or off.

• Keyboard: the shortcut in the table above.
• Controller on Android: Select + Y, or a DualSense's own Mute button.
• Any client with a microphone: the dial's Microphone button.

With the microphone off in client settings, the mute does nothing.

Controller chordsCopy Anchor Link

Hold Select (Back, View) first, then press the second button.

Leaving with a controllerCopy Anchor Link

Hold L1 + R1 + Start + Select (LB + RB + Start + Back on an Xbox pad) on any connected pad.

On Linux and Windows the chord needs Forward controllers on. With it off, use Ctrl+Alt+Shift+D or the client's own controls.

The guide button (Xbox / PS / Steam) and Quick AccessCopy Anchor Link

The guide button (the Xbox logo, the PS button, the Deck's Steam button) opens menus on the host. Where your device keeps that button for itself, hold Select on its own instead: let go after about a third of a second and the host sees a guide press. Hold on past a second and the host sees its guide button held until you let go, so a long hold opens a SteamOS host's Quick Access Menu. A quick tap of Select still reaches the game, a beat late. Pressed with another button, Select never presses guide.

Hold Select is the Guide button row under Settings → Input → Shortcuts; remove it to send Select at once. The advanced setting Guide button decides where the real button goes. By default:

If Steam or the Xbox Game Bar on your own device also watches the guide button, both react; turn that off on your device. On macOS and iOS 27 and newer, add Punktfunk to Home Button Overrides in the system's game controller settings; while the system keeps the button, Punktfunk's Controllers settings link there. The dial's Guide button and Quick access menu buttons press the host's pad for you. Quick access menu needs Steam on the host: it presses the pad's own button where the virtual pad has one, and Guide with A on every other pad. On a Deck, the Punktfunk panel's Host menus buttons do the same (Steam Deck).

TV remotesCopy Anchor Link

The quick-action dialCopy Anchor Link

The dial is six buttons plus a centre that opens a sheet with every action and the resolution presets. Pick its six buttons under Quick actions in settings, or edit the dial itself.

A twist commits at about 30°; lift earlier and nothing is sent. On Android, turn off Back opens quick actions to make Back do nothing mid-stream; a mouse's Back button always goes to the host.

While the dial is up, input belongs to it and the host sees nothing:

• Controller: the left stick aims, the D-pad steps, A fires, Y returns to the centre, B closes.
• Keyboard: Tab steps through the buttons, the arrows aim, Enter fires, Esc closes.
• Mouse: the desktop clients hand the pointer back so you can click a button.

What the dial can hold:

A button a client can't serve is dimmed and says why. Send text works on Android against a host that takes typed text. Each press of Controller type re-plugs your controllers as the next type (Automatic, Xbox 360, Xbox One, DualSense, DualShock 4, Steam Deck) for this stream. The next stream starts from your settings. See also Controller mouse.

Changing a shortcutCopy Anchor Link

1. Open Settings → Input → Shortcuts. Choose a row or Add shortcut.
2. Does: a quick action, a host action, a key combination, or Quick actions (the dial).
3. Press: choose Record and press the buttons or keys, or Choose them from a grid.
4. Fires on: Press, or Hold for a second.
5. Choose Save (Add for a new one). The console saves each change as you make it.

Remove deletes a row; Reset to defaults brings back the shortcuts on this page. While you edit a preset, the page edits that preset's shortcuts. A change applies from the next stream.

• One button on its own only works as a hold. A short press still reaches the game.
• A press can't be part of a longer one: Select + A would fire before Select + A + B can complete.
• The same buttons can be a press and a hold, like the leave chord: the press fires if you let go before a second.
• On a keyboard: Ctrl, Alt or Shift plus a key, or a function key alone. ⌘ and Win stay the host's.
• A hold bound to Guide button, Quick access menu or a key combination keeps it down past a second, until you let go: hold for Alt+Tab and the task switcher stays open.
• Touch gestures and remote buttons are listed as Fixed.

What the game sees: the buttons you press before the last one of a shortcut. The last one waits: a press keeps it from the game, and a hold gives it back as a short tap, a beat late, if you let go before a second. Shortcuts work while input is released and while the dial is open.