Series Index Features You May Not Know About • Entry #8

Blender: Hold Alt to Change a Value on Every Selected Object

By Infinite Creation · Blender · ~8 min

The Real-World Scenario

Fifty objects in a scene need the same change. Shadow casting off, or viewport display set to wire, or a subdivision level raised by one. You select them all, change the value, and it applies to the active object only. So you click through fifty objects and set fifty values.

Blender does apply a change across a selection, and has for years. The behaviour hides behind a modifier key with no visible affordance, so almost nobody finds it by exploring the interface.

The Solved Feature: Alt-click multi-object editing

The two ways to do it

Hold Alt while you click into a field, type a value, or toggle a checkbox. The change applies to every selected object rather than the active one.

The second route works after the fact. Change the value normally on one object, then right-click the field and choose Copy to Selected. Every other selected object receives the value the active object currently holds. Useful when you have already made the change and then decide it should apply everywhere.

Where it works and where it does not

Object properties, modifier settings, material values and many panel fields respond to both methods. Coverage is broad rather than complete, and the interface gives no indication of which fields participate, so the reliable approach is trying it and checking the result on a second object.

Related behaviour worth knowing at the same time. Typing an equals sign into a numeric field lets you enter an expression rather than a number, and dragging across several fields sets them together.

Why this one is worth the memory

Most hidden features save a few seconds. This one changes the cost of a whole category of work. Any scene built from repeated objects, any import arriving as hundreds of separate meshes, any lighting setup needing the same flag on every lamp becomes one edit rather than a list of them.

The pattern generalises. When a task in Blender means doing the same thing repeatedly, check for a modifier key before starting.

Pro Tips and Gotchas

Alt collides with Emulate 3 Button Mouse, which reassigns Alt for viewport navigation. Users with the preference enabled need to disable it or use the right-click Copy to Selected route.
On Linux, some window managers claim Alt-drag for moving windows and intercept it before Blender sees it. Changing the window manager modifier fixes it.
Copy to Selected pushes the active object's current value out. Alt-editing sets a new value everywhere. The two differ when the active object is not the one holding the value you want.

Where This Fits

The wider discipline is covered in Blender for Motion Graphics, the pillar guide for this area. This page is entry 8 in Features You May Not Know About, a series on capabilities shipping in software you already own.

Why this shortcut matters

Changing one value across many selected objects is the difference between a change taking a second and taking a minute. On a scene holding forty objects, adjusting a property individually is not merely slower, it invites inconsistency, because a value typed forty times will not be identical forty times.

The habit generalises well beyond one application. Most software with a properties panel has some equivalent for applying a value across a selection, and looking for it the first time you find yourself repeating an edit is usually faster than repeating it.

Watch what gets included in the selection. An operation applied across a selection affects everything in it, including objects scrolled out of view, so confirming what is actually selected before committing prevents a change nobody noticed until much later.

Vocabulary

Modifier key. A key held while performing another action to change what it does. Used across applications to turn a single-item operation into one affecting a whole selection.

Active object. In a multi-object selection, the one whose properties are shown in the panel. Its values are usually what gets propagated, so which object is active determines the result of a bulk change.

Datablock. Blender's unit of reusable data, such as a mesh or a material, which several objects can share. Editing a shared datablock changes every object using it, which is either efficient or surprising.

Property panel. The interface region exposing an object's editable values. The place bulk edits are performed, and the reason a selection-aware shortcut saves so much repetitive work.