Hotkeys and keys

The three gestures

AltTab answers three combinations, all of them configurable:

Default	Name in the dialog	What it does
Alt+Tab	Switch between all windows	Every window, most recently used first.
Alt+`	Switch within one application	Only the windows of the application you are in. The ` key is the one above Tab on a US keyboard. See switching within one application.
Ctrl+Alt+Tab	Switch, and stay open	Opens the switcher and leaves it up when you let go of the modifiers.

All three work the same way: hold the modifier, tap the key to move through the list, release the modifier to commit. Holding Shift as you tap reverses the direction — unless the combination itself contains Shift, in which case it has no reverse.

Each one can be turned off on its own without giving up the others.

Changing them

The Hotkeys page

F2 → Hotkeys. Click a recorder box and press the combination you want; it shows what it captured. Two rules are enforced:

Every hotkey needs at least one of Ctrl, Alt or Shift. The gesture is hold-tap-release, so a bare key would have nothing to release. The dialog says so rather than accepting it.
Two enabled hotkeys set to the same combination are called out, in red, naming both and saying that only one of them can respond. It is a warning rather than a refusal — you can apply it — but the one you meant may not be the one that answers.

Combinations must match exactly, not merely contain what is asked for. That is what lets Alt+Tab and Ctrl+Alt+Tab coexist: with both modifiers held only the second one matches. It also means a hotkey using more modifiers is not shadowed by a simpler one.

While a box is recording, AltTab's own hotkeys stand down — otherwise pressing Alt+Tab to record it would open the switcher instead.

Upgrading from an older version. The three combinations live under new keys (AltTab, AltBacktick, AltCtrlTab) in [Hotkeys]. A file written by an older build has none of them, so the defaults apply — except that a custom backtick key from the superseded BacktickKey is carried over into AltBacktick, so a non-US keyboard's setting is not lost. BacktickKey is still read and no longer written.

Keys inside the switcher

These work however the switcher was opened.

Key	What it does
Tab / Shift+Tab	Next / previous row. (Whatever key your hotkey uses.)
↓ / ↑	Next / previous row.
Home or Page Up	First row.
End or Page Down	Last row.
Enter	Activate the selected window.
Escape	Close the switcher without switching.
Delete	Close the selected window.
Shift+Delete	End the selected window's process.
` / Shift+`	Jump to the next / previous window of the same application, wherever it is in the list.
Letters, digits, punctuation	Filter the list. See finding a window.
Backspace	Delete the last character of the filter.
F1	This help. Shift+F1 shows the version instead.
F2	The Settings dialog.
Mouse wheel	Scroll the list.

Alt is still held while you do all of this, which is why the letters filter instead of triggering menus in the window behind. AltTab swallows those keystrokes and hands them to its own search box.

When a hotkey does nothing

The usual cause is that the window in front is running elevated and AltTab is not: a normal process cannot see keystrokes destined for an administrator's window. Run AltTab elevated too — Always run as Administrator in the tray menu — and it works everywhere. Troubleshooting has the rest.