Visual Studio Expand/Collapse keyboard shortcuts

Question

In Visual Studio, if I have a code file open, I can press CTRL + M or CTRL + M + O to collapse all code blocks, regions, namespaces, etc.

How to I do the opposite and expand everything?

I have Googled this, but cannot seem to find a shortcut that works!

score 379 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 14 '17 at 08:49

379

Collapse to definitions

CTRL + M, O

Expand all outlining

CTRL + M, X

Expand or collapse everything

CTRL + M, L

This also works with other languages like TypeScript and JavaScript

edited Sep 14 '17 at 08:49

Alberto Chiesa

7,022
2
26
53

answered Dec 27 '12 at 08:29

Matthew Layton

39,871
52
185
313

33

And I googled it and got your answer;) – Bartosz Apr 19 '15 at 10:45
10

Dont' press all three buttons at once! Hold CTRL and then press M followed by either O or X. ;-) – Krisztián Balla Feb 10 '16 at 11:19
Note that the CTRL + M + L keyboard sequence is the equivalent of doing Edit > Outlining > Toggle All Outlining. – jrh May 03 '17 at 12:33
@jrh expand/collapse, toggle...same same. – Matthew Layton May 03 '17 at 14:53
@series0ne Sure, I mostly put that there because I was looking for it under the View menu, not the Edit > Outlining menu. – jrh May 03 '17 at 14:58
@jrh aye it was well placed. Feel free to update the answer – Matthew Layton May 03 '17 at 14:59
When I do this in vs2017, I got "The Key Combination (Ctrl + M, O) is not a command." It's actually (Ctrl + M, Ctrl + O), found out by going into environment settings. I'm not sure if things changed in vs2017. – Dan Chase Sep 27 '18 at 15:44
@DanChase do you have any plugins installed that might have overridden the key mapping? Something like Resharper for example? (not suggesting Resharper DOES do this, but it wouldn't surprise me...) – Matthew Layton Sep 27 '18 at 15:46
@DanChase P.S. I have VS2017 Enterprise installed and it works here. – Matthew Layton Sep 27 '18 at 15:46
Actually, there is also CTRL + M + A, which collapses all, although I don't really see why it's useful. – terminus.technicus Nov 27 '19 at 10:37

score 139 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 29 '14 at 08:56

139

As you can see, there are several ways to achieve this.

I personally use:

Expand all: CTRL + M + L

Collapse all: CTRL + M + O

Bonus:

Expand/Collapse on cursor location: CTRL + M + M

answered Sep 29 '14 at 08:56

Sirar Salih

2,514
2
19
18

7

Without wanting to repeat the other comments there, but Ctrl M M is awesome and going to save me so much time! – Ciaran Martin Mar 08 '16 at 16:50
1

V useful bonus about expand collapse on location – MemeDeveloper Mar 28 '16 at 12:03
2

CMM +1 internet cookie for you. Not what I was looking for... BETTER! than what I was looking for. – WernerCD Dec 21 '17 at 17:12
Ctrl M M doesn't work in last VS – Diogo Cid Sep 10 '18 at 14:58
1

Can confirm Ctrl+M+M works in Visual Studio 2019 – Seb Aug 06 '19 at 11:22
"True collapse all" is Ctrl + M + A. Ctrl + M + O collapses to definitions – this is what I use all the time, as it produces a kind of a "table of contents" of a class. – terminus.technicus Nov 27 '19 at 10:39
Is there an inverse version of CTR+M+M ? – Allstar Feb 07 '20 at 08:24
2

@Allstar Simply press CTRL+M+M again :-) – Sirar Salih Feb 07 '20 at 11:33

score 33 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 04 '15 at 12:38

Visual Studio 2015:

Tools > Options > Settings > Environment > Keyboard

Defaults:

Edit.CollapsetoDefinitions: CTRL + M + O

Edit.CollapseCurrentRegion: CTRL + M +CTRL + S

Edit.ExpandAllOutlining: CTRL + M + CTRL + X

Edit.ExpandCurrentRegion: CTRL + M + CTRL + E

I like to set and use IntelliJ's shortcuts:

Edit.CollapsetoDefinitions: CTRL + SHIFT + NUM-

Edit.CollapseCurrentRegion: CTRL + NUM-

Edit.ExpandAllOutlining: CTRL + SHIFT + NUM+

Edit.ExpandCurrentRegion: CTRL + NUM+

CME is what I was looking for. One internet cookie for you. – WernerCD Dec 21 '17 at 17:11 — WernerCD, Dec 21 '17 at 17:11

score 22 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 27 '12 at 08:30

22

You can use Ctrl + M and Ctrl + P

It's called Edit.StopOutlining

answered Dec 27 '12 at 08:30

Ufuk Hacıoğulları

37,978
12
114
156

1

Thanks for this!...Would be interested to know how you formatted your shortcuts here to look like keys from a keyboard! – Matthew Layton Dec 27 '12 at 08:41
@series0ne Wrapped them with kbd tags :) – Ufuk Hacıoğulları Dec 27 '12 at 08:51
3

@congusbongus It doesn't print if you press Ctrl + M first. – Ufuk Hacıoğulları Mar 03 '14 at 08:11

score 13 · Answer 5 · edited Feb 28 '18 at 14:22

13

For collapse, you can try CTRL + M + O and expand using CTRL + M + P. This works in VS2008.

edited Feb 28 '18 at 14:22

L Y E S - C H I O U K H

4,765
8
40
57

answered Sep 10 '14 at 04:56

SUMAN

131
1
2

It's `CTRL + M + O` - letter O, not number 0. The cleanup-edit introduced the error into the answer. – goodeye Jul 04 '16 at 01:52

score 8 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 30 '14 at 12:21

8

Go to Tools->Options->Text Editor->c#->Advanced and uncheck the first checkbox Enter outlining mode when files open.

This will solve this problem forever

answered Oct 30 '14 at 12:21

Sonja

575
1
6
20

Finaly someone thinking, thank you so much, I would mark your comment as a real answer. – pixel Mar 18 '16 at 18:23
Note that this setting makes it so that all regions are automatically expanded when you open a code file -- for me this is better than the keyboard shortcut because I prefer to never see collapsed regions. – jrh May 04 '17 at 19:30

score 5 · Answer 7 · edited Jun 07 '18 at 14:15

I have always wanted Visual Studio to include an option to just collapse / expand the regions. I have the following macros which will do just that.

Imports EnvDTE
Imports System.Diagnostics
' Macros for improving keyboard support for "#region ... #endregion"
Public Module CollapseExpandRegions
' Expands all regions in the current document
  Sub ExpandAllRegions()

    Dim objSelection As TextSelection ' Our selection object

    DTE.SuppressUI = True ' Disable UI while we do this
    objSelection = DTE.ActiveDocument.Selection() ' Hook up to the ActiveDocument's selection
    objSelection.StartOfDocument() ' Shoot to the start of the document

    ' Loop through the document finding all instances of #region. This action has the side benefit
    ' of actually zooming us to the text in question when it is found and ALSO expanding it since it
    ' is an outline.
    Do While objSelection.FindText("#region", vsFindOptions.vsFindOptionsMatchInHiddenText)
        ' This next command would be what we would normally do *IF* the find operation didn't do it for us.
        'DTE.ExecuteCommand("Edit.ToggleOutliningExpansion")
    Loop
    objSelection.StartOfDocument() ' Shoot us back to the start of the document
    DTE.SuppressUI = False ' Reenable the UI

    objSelection = Nothing ' Release our object

  End Sub

  ' Collapses all regions in the current document
  Sub CollapseAllRegions()
    Dim objSelection As TextSelection ' Our selection object

    ExpandAllRegions() ' Force the expansion of all regions

    DTE.SuppressUI = True ' Disable UI while we do this
    objSelection = DTE.ActiveDocument.Selection() ' Hook up to the ActiveDocument's selection
    objSelection.EndOfDocument() ' Shoot to the end of the document

    ' Find the first occurence of #region from the end of the document to the start of the document. Note:
    ' Note: Once a #region is "collapsed" .FindText only sees it's "textual descriptor" unless
    ' vsFindOptions.vsFindOptionsMatchInHiddenText is specified. So when a #region "My Class" is collapsed,
    ' .FindText would subsequently see the text 'My Class' instead of '#region "My Class"' for the subsequent
    ' passes and skip any regions already collapsed.
    Do While (objSelection.FindText("#region", vsFindOptions.vsFindOptionsBackwards))
        DTE.ExecuteCommand("Edit.ToggleOutliningExpansion") ' Collapse this #region
        'objSelection.EndOfDocument() ' Shoot back to the end of the document for
        ' another pass.
    Loop
    objSelection.StartOfDocument() ' All done, head back to the start of the doc
    DTE.SuppressUI = False ' Reenable the UI

    objSelection = Nothing ' Release our object

  End Sub
End Module

EDIT: There is now a shortcut called Edit.ToggleOutliningExpansion (Ctrl+M, Ctrl+M) for doing just that.

Visual Studio Expand/Collapse keyboard shortcuts

7 Answers7

Linked