When `selected-minor-mode' is active, the keybindings in `selected-keymap' will be enabled when the region is active. This is useful for commands that operates on the region, which you only want keybound when the region is active. `selected-keymap' has no default bindings. Bind it yourself: (define-key selected-keymap (kbd "u") #'upcase-region) You can also bind keys specific to a major mode, by creating a keymap named selected--map (if the map isn't found, tries derived ones): (setq selected-org-mode-map (make-sparse-keymap)) (define-key selected-org-mode-map (kbd "t") #'org-table-convert-region) There's also a global minor mode available: `selected-global-mode' if you want selected-minor-mode in all buffers.