Visual Studio - Shortcut to Navigate to Solution Explorer

Question

Is there a keyboard shortcut in Visual Studio (aside from CTRL + TAB and selection) that would take me from inside a document directly into the solution explorer? I don't want to customize any shortcuts or change any default behavior.

Answer 1

CTRL + ALT + L

should shift focus to the Solution Explorer.

For visual studio 2012 use:

CTRL + [ + S this selects your current document in the solution explorer.

Answer 2

When using VS 2012 with the Visual C# 2005 keyboard mapping scheme :

CTRL + W , S

I find this easier to memorize: All shortcuts beginning with CTRL + W are for opening or navigating to W indows:

• CTRL + W , S : S olution Explorer
• CTRL + W , E : E rror list
• CTRL + W , R : R esourceview
• CTRL + W , A : Command window ( A ction...)
• CTRL + W , T : T askview
• CTRL + W , Q : Find Symbol Results
• CTRL + W , X : Toolbo x
• CTRL + W , C : C lassview
• CTRL + W , P : P roperties
• CTRL + W , B : B ookmarks
• ...

Answer 3

In Visual Studio 2012 you can now use CTRL + ; as this is the default keyboard shortcut for the solution explorer search box.

Answer 4

On my windows 7 machine: Ctrl + ALT + L locks the computer.

For me: Shift + ALT + L works. (This could also be a resharper configuration)

Answer 5

1. shortcut ctrl [ , S will focus current open file/document in solution explorer.
2. setting checkbox to true in "Track active in Solution Explorer" will automatically focus current open file/document in solution explorer (Tools->Options->Projects and solutions->General->"Track Active Item in Solution Explorer"=true

Answer 6

The default keyboard shortcut for opening/jumping to Solution Explorer is Ctrl + Alt + L .

Answer 7

Extended above: command name for sync tab with solution explorer is " SolutionExplorer.SyncWithActiveDocument "

Answer 8

Visual Studio

2015 and 2017 (by default ) VS 2017 Shortcuts

Ctrl + [ , S

Runs Keyboard Shortcut

SolutionExplorer.SyncWithActiveDocument

ReSharper

In Visual Studio 2015 and 2017 (by default ) Resharper Docs

Shift + Alt + L

Which runs Resharper's Keyboard Shortcut

Resharper.Resharper_LocateInSolutionOrAssemblyExplorer

Both

• Focus Solution Explorer
• Highlight document
• Scroll / expand nodes (as required to show that document)

Difference

Resharper's version also works with decompiled code . Locating decompiled symbols in the Assembly Explorer window.

To customise / it doesn't work:

1. Tools > Options > Environment > Keyboard
2. Search shortcut name (eg SolutionExplorer.SyncWithActiveDocument)
3. Assign (in Global) to Keyboard shortcuts as you like

Answer 9

ctrl + [ + S .

This shortcut will highlight the currently opened document in solution explorer.

Answer 10

I had this problem on a new machine build with VS 2013 and R# 8.2.

Keyboard option Resharper.Resharper_LocateInSolutionExplorer was correctly set to Shift+Alt+L , but it seemed to be only opening a parent folder and not selecting the actual file. As recommended in another post I enabled "Track active in Solution Explorer" in the VS Options.

This didn't fix the problem and wasn't what I want because in very large solutions I don't want the solution explorer jumping around to the current file in use. I disabled the Track feature and restarted VS, the LocateInSolutionExplorer feature then started working correctly. Some sort of shortcut precedence issue?

Answer 11

For AZERTY keyboards like mine, the default shortcut is Ctrl + ) , Ctrl + S

Answer 12

We just upgraded from VS2013 to VS2017, and I had to go looking for how to auto-select the active tab in the Solution Explorer. I often have to look for a document by finding a text-string from a screen, and love to have it select the document so I can see where it is.

Tracking the active document has been default behavior for a long time. VS2017 brought over ALL my other preferences, but not this one. Glad I found this thread--Thank you.

Answer 13

Ctrl + Alt + L works fine even in VS 2019.

But if you have reassigned the above key to some other command (by mistake in my case) then the name of the command is View.SolutionExplorer

You can search it in the Tools -> Options -> Environment -> Keyboard or just do Ctrl + Q and search keymap .

And then search View.SolutionExplorer in the Show commands containing: and assign whichever key you want.