SketchUp Modification Tool Shortcuts

Push/Pull (P) is SketchUp's defining feature and almost certainly the single shortcut every user learns first. Clicking and dragging a flat face extrudes it outward into a solid volume, or pushes it inward to create a recess, entirely by drag rather than requiring a separate extrude command and numeric depth entry — though typing an exact depth value after starting the drag (the Value Control Box workflow covered on the drawing-tools category page) achieves precise, non-freehand extrusion when exact dimensions matter. Move (M) repositions selected geometry by dragging, and it carries one of SketchUp's most useful modifier behaviors: holding Ctrl on Windows (Option on Mac) while dragging with Move switches it from relocating the original into duplicating it, leaving the original exactly where it was and creating a copy at the new position instead — a fast way to array multiple copies of an object along a line (moving, copying, then typing a multiplier like "x6" to fill in five more evenly spaced copies automatically) without a separate copy-paste-position sequence for each one individually. Rotate (Q) requires a genuinely different interaction pattern than Move's single continuous drag: you first click to set the rotation's center point and reference axis, then drag to define the actual rotation angle — a two-step process rather than one fluid motion, which trips up some new users expecting Rotate to behave like a simple click-and-spin the way Move behaves like a simple click-and-drag. Scale (S) shows draggable grip points around the selection's bounding box once activated, letting you resize uniformly by dragging a corner grip, or non-uniformly along a single axis by dragging one of the edge-midpoint grips specifically — worth knowing which grip does which before dragging, since accidentally squashing a model along just one axis when uniform scaling was intended is a common early mistake. Offset (F) creates a parallel copy of a selected face's edges at a specified distance inward or outward, correctly handling curves and corners with mathematically exact precision that's genuinely difficult to replicate manually by eye — the standard tool for turning a floor plan's outer boundary into a wall with consistent thickness on all sides, or adding a picture-frame-style border of exact, even width around an existing shape. Eraser (E) deletes whatever edges the cursor drags across, and along with each deleted edge, any face that depended on that edge for its boundary disappears too — this is SketchUp's standard way of removing unwanted geometry directly by dragging across it, generally faster than selecting specific elements first and then pressing Delete, particularly when removing a scattered handful of small unwanted edges across a model. A practical combination worth knowing: Offset followed immediately by Push/Pull is the standard technique for creating a wall or frame of exact thickness from a flat floor-plan outline — offset the outline inward by the wall's intended thickness, select the resulting ring-shaped face between the original outline and the offset copy, and push/pull that ring upward to create actual wall geometry with a precisely controlled thickness rather than eyeballing it with a second, separately drawn outline. A further point worth understanding about how these six tools interact with SketchUp's organizational features (Groups and Components, mentioned in this page's action pages): Move, Rotate, and Scale all treat a Group or Component as a single, indivisible unit by default, transforming the whole bundle together rather than individual pieces of geometry within it shifting independently and potentially distorting the shape. This is precisely why experienced SketchUp modelers tend to group or componentize meaningful chunks of a model early in the process — a chair leg, a window frame, a piece of furniture — specifically so that later Move, Rotate, or Scale operations act predictably on the whole intended object rather than risking an accidental partial edit that only touches some of its geometry. Eraser's behavior with Groups and Components is worth calling out separately, since it diverges from the other tools here: erasing edges works only on geometry you've explicitly entered edit mode for (typically by double-clicking into a Group or Component first), reflecting SketchUp's deliberate isolation of a Component's internal geometry from the rest of the model until you've specifically opted into editing it — attempting to erase an edge that's actually inside an unedited Component from the outside simply won't register at all, which is a common point of confusion for anyone new to SketchUp's Group and Component system.