Skyrim console commands and cheats: the most useful on PC
Fus Ro Dah what you want
Want to know which console commands you can use in Skyrim? After a decade, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim continues to endure for many reasons. Whether you love the world, the characters, the pure meme potential, or the huge modding community that strives to deliver endless content, it’s easy to sink hundreds, if not thousands, of hours into the RPG beast. However, sometimes it’s fun to just play God, and console commands let you do just that.
This guide will show you a heap of console commands that you can use to tweak settings, spawn items, and alter Skyrim completely.
How to enter Skyrim console commands
To enter console commands in Skyrim, you need to press the ‘grave’ key on a UK keyboard, or ‘tilde’ on a US keyboard. If you’re currently stuck scouring your keyboard, these keys are always sat next to the number 1 and above the TAB key. This will bring up the console command menu.
If you've never seen console commands before, it might all look a bit complicated, but it really isn't! To help ease you in, here's a little example of how to actually type things into the console. Let's take the setplayerrace command, which lets us change your character's race. For this example, we'll change into an Argonian.
In the table below, this is listed as:
- setplayerrace (race id)
But you should write it in the console as:
- setplayerrace argonianrace
The race ID for an Argonian is argonianrace, so we type that in without the brackets. Brackets are only used in this table to help clarify when there are multiple IDs needed in one command. You don't need to use brackets when typing yourself.
Lots of commands will use IDs, which are used by the game to locate the specific assets for you to mess around with. To find the right ID you're looking for, use the help "keyword" command, which is the first one listed in the table.
Every Skyrim console command
Now that you’ve got the console command menu up, it’s about time we gave you some cheats to use. Here’s a list of over 50 console commands in Skyrim for PC, so you can go wild and shape the world as you see fit. We've included all of the important commands, such as toggle God mode and immortality, as well as some more generic commands, such as toggle trees and change FOV, so that you can play around and alter the settings of your game at your own risk.
Beware: if you're just messing around, do this on a new save, as you don't want to permanently damage your main save file.
With that in mind, we've separated this list of commands into 6 different command types. These are:
- Toggle - Settings and states that you can toggle on and off
- Target - Effects that you can have on a target character or object. Use 'player.' followed by the console command to target your character
- Player - Effects that specifically apply to the player
- Quest - Commands that alter quests and quest stages
- Weather - Allows you to alter the weather
- System - System-level changes and effects
| Type | Command | Description |
|---|---|---|
| System | help (keyword) | Lists all console commands that relate to your specific keyword. For example, help sword will show all commands, values, and IDs related to swords (which is a lot). You can scroll through these using the page up and page down keys |
| Toggle | tgm | Toggles God Mode, making you invincible and granting infinite carry weight |
| Toggle | tcl | Allows you to fly and walk through walls |
| Toggle | tai | Toggles AI behaviours unrelated to combat. This disables dialogue, for example |
| Toggle | tcai | Toggles AI combat behaviour, so you will not be attacked |
| Toggle | tdetect | Toggles detection, so NPCs and enemies will not be aware of your actions. Does not apply to pickpocketing |
| Toggle | tg | Toggles grass in the game world |
| Toggle | tll | Toggles LOD rendering |
| Toggle | tfow | Toggles Fog of War for your local map |
| Toggle | tm | Toggles the pause menu, UI, and console command input menu |
| Toggle | tim | Toggles immortal mode, allowing you to withstand any damage |
| Toggle | tmm (0/1) | Toggles map markers. 0 disables all markers, whilst 1 enables them all so that you can see every location |
| Toggle | ts | Toggles the skybox |
| Toggle | tt | Toggles trees |
| Toggle | twf | Toggles the frame of objects, removing all textures |
| Toggle | tws | Toggles water |
| Toggle | tfc | Switches your control to a camera instead of your character |
| Target | setunconscious (0/1) | Decides whether your target is awake (0) or unconscious (1) |
| Target | kill | Instantly kills your current target |
| Target | resurrect | Instantly resurrects your current target |
| Target | unlock | Unlocks current target if it is locked |
| Target | lock(0-100) | Locks the current target. Choose a number from 0-100 to determine lock difficulty. Anything above 100 requires a key, which could result in the target being permanently locked without the help of console commands |
| Target | setownership player | Makes the targeted item belong to you |
| Target | sifh (0/1) | Decides whether your target takes damage (0) or not (1) from your attacks |
| Target | str (0/1) | Decides how visible your target is on a scale of 0-1. 0 is invisible and 1 is visible |
| Target | setghost (0/1) | Decides whether target is invincible (1) or not (0) |
| Target | dispelallspells | Ends the effects of any spells and poisons on your target |
| Target | duplicateallitems player | Duplicates the current targets inventory and places it into your inventory |
| Target | equipitem (item id) | If your target has the specific item (determined with item ID) in their inventory, they equip it |
| Target | equipspell (spell id) (instant/left/right) | Equips your target with the specified spell (determined with spell ID) to the specified slot (instant effect, left hand, and right hand, respectively) |
| Target | equipshout (shout id) | Equips your target with the specified shout (determined by shout ID) |
| Target | tc | Takes control of your current target, so you will move them and your character at the same time |
| Target | addperk (perk id) | Gives your target the specified perk (determined by perk ID) |
| Target | removeperk (perk id) | Removes the specified perk (determined by perk ID) from your current target |
| Target | addshout (shout id) | Adds the specified shout (determined by shout ID) to your target's spell list |
| Target | addspell (spell id) | Adds the specified spell (determined by spell ID) to your target's spell list |
| Target | removespell (spell id) | Removes the specified spell (determined by spell ID) from your current target's spell list |
| Target | drop (item id) | Drops the specified item (determined by item ID) from your target |
| Target | getav (actor value id) | Prints the current value of an actor value ID, so that you can then use the following command to either increase or decrease it |
| Target | modav (actor value id) (amount) | Adds the amount you enter to the actor value ID, allowing you to change behaviours or stats of a target. You can use this to change health or mood, for example |
| Target | resethealth | Resets the health of your current target |
| Target | getlevel | Prints the level of your current target in the console |
| Target | getlocationcleared (location id) | Prints to console whether the specified location (determined by location ID) has been cleared by the player |
| Target | getrelationshiprank (reference id) | Prints to console the relationship between your current target and the specified NPC (determined by reference ID) on a scale of -4 (worst) to 4 (best). |
| Target | additem (item id) | Adds the specified item (determined by item ID) to the target's inventory |
| Target | removeitem (item id) | Removes the specified item (determined by item ID) from the target's inventory |
| Target | removeallitems (reference id) | Removes all items from your current target's inventory |
| Target | disable | Disables AI, collision, and model of your current target |
| Target | enable | Enables your current target if they have been disabled with the disable command |
| Target | showinventory | Shows the inventory of your current target |
| Target | addtofaction (faction id) (rank) | Adds your current target to the specified faction (determined by faction ID). Enter a number for rank, starting at 0 for the lowest rank |
| Target | moveto (reference id) | Teleports your current target to the specified NPC or item (determined by reference ID) |
| Target | openactorcontainer 1 | Opens your current target's inventory |
| Target | playidle (animation id) | Makes the current target perform the specified animation (determined by animation ID) |
| Target | resetai | Resets your target to their default state |
| Target | resetinventory | Resets your target's inventory to its default state |
| Target | setessential (base id) (0/1) | Changes whether an specified NPC (determined by base ID) is essential (1) or not(0) |
| Target | say (dialog id) | Makes your target say the specified dialogue (determined by dialog ID) |
| Quest | getstage (quest id) | Prints your current stage in the specified quest (determined by quest ID) |
| Quest | movetoqt (quest id) | Teleports you to the location of the current quest marker on the specified quest (determined by quest ID) |
| Quest | completequest (quest id) | Completes the specified quest (determined by quest ID) |
| Quest | startallquests | Starts every quest in the game |
| Quest | completeallqueststages | Completes every quest in the game |
| Quest | resetquest (quest id) | Resets the specified quest (determined by quest ID) back to the first stage |
| Quest | showquesttargets | Prints quest IDs and your current stage in each quest to the console |
| Quest | showqueststages (quest id) | Lists all stages and their IDs for the specified quest (determined by quest ID) |
| Player | playerenchantobject (item id) (enchantment id) | Adds the specified object (determined by item ID) with the specified enchantment (determined by enchantment ID) to your inventory |
| Player | playercreatepotion (effect id) | Adds a potion with the specified effects (determined by effect ID) to your inventory |
| Player | playerspellbook | Instantly unlock all spells and shouts |
| Player | setplayerrace (race id) | Change your character to the specified race (determined by race ID) |
| Player | centeroncell (location id) | Teleports you to the specified location (determined by location ID) |
| Player | enableplayercontrols | Allows you to control your character during cinematics |
| Player | player.advlevel | Levels up your character but gives no perk points |
| Weather | forceweather (weather id) | Changes the weather to the specified type (determined by weather ID) |
| System | qqq | Quits the game |
| System | fov # | Changes FOV to the specified value |
| System | help | Lists every console command in the console |
That's everything you need to know about Skyrim console commands. If you want to commit to the chaotic and often-messy nature of a Bethesda RPG, come laugh at some of the best bugs from the wider world of PC games with us.