Easy Keyboard Remapping for OS X (Github.Com) 131 Points by Fspacef 13 Hours Ago | Hide | Past | Web | 73 Comments | Favorite

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JohnGB 1 hour ago [-] Karabiner (and its predecessor) is invaluable for me every day use of my macbook. In general using a touchpad feels like trying to type with only one finger, but with the "multi-touch exension" (I think it's based on touchsense), allows me to redefine my keyboard depending on what's happening on my touchpad. So, now my left hand is always on the home keys, and if I'm touching the touchpad with one finger, the home keys are my left, right, and middle mouse buttons. If I'm touching it with two fingers, the home keys and nearby keys remap to save, refresh, find, select all, copy, paste, cut, close, and others. If three fingers are touching, then my keys remap to my windows layout and other utility programs which I often call (such as the terminal). There are many other general remappings which have made my life at a keyboard much faster and easier to use, but the multi-touch extensions are the ones that I would struggle to live without. As a side note, if you use the product and find it helpful, you should really consider donating to it. It will make you feel like a better human, and encourage continued support. reply lars512 11 hours ago [-] I used Karabiner for a month after getting hit by a car and breaking my right wrist. I couldn't use that hand at all whilst it healed. I had Karabiner remap my keyboard to half-qwerty, so that I could type entirely using my left hand on the left side of the keyboard only. A modifier key would switch it into "mirror mode" so that all the left-side keys would be remapped to right-side keys. Fun stuff! reply

milesokeefe 11 hours ago [-] Once you regained use of your right hand did it take any time to get back to full typing speed using both hands? How close to your two hand WPM did you achieve with your left hand alone?

lars512 2 hours ago [-] The biggest obstacle was the swelling in the wrist after surgery. I had to keep it elevated for quite a long time, and it would throb and be painful when I lowered it to the keyboard. That passed gradually over 2 months. The finger dexterity never left, the moments I held my hand there I could type at ~80% speed without problems from early on. With just my left hand, I could only manage more like 20%, which felt very very slow to me. The bottleneck with half-querty was the modifier key, which I had to hit very often to switch layouts. If you could move that to something else, that layout could speed up much more. Had I been out of action much longer, I might have tried some kind of custom one-handed chording setup instead.

lj3 8 hours ago [-] I'm adding my comment here to "pile on" and say that I'm very interested in the answers to these questions, too. I tried to learn a one handed keyboard back in college (Matias Half Keyboard) just to see if there was any benefit to always having one hand on the kb and one on the mouse. I never did find out; I gave up learning how to type with one hand after a month and sent the keyboard back.

tomcam 5 hours ago [-] Just had to put left arm in a brace and would like to hear results too.

reply neurocroc 13 hours ago [-] This application has been really huge for my productivity. I have literally rebinded every single key on my mac with it. It is very powerful especially when you combine it with the multitude of Alfred workflows and different scripts that you can run. I open Alfred with just single press of right command, I switch between all my apps through hotkeys, my caps lock is a hyper key, my right shift is delete. Can't give more praise to this tool really. Here is how I use it and what my config file for it looks like for all interested : https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/dotfiles/tree/master/karab... More importantly, it allows to keep myself sane with the enormous amounts of apps and tools I run on my system (https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/my-mac-os) and interchange with them seamlessly. reply

Singletoned 3 hours ago [-] With all that software, I don't suppose you've come up with a good solution for installing and configuring it all automatically on a new machine? Last time I tried to automate it I used homebrew cask, but it definitely wasn't a satisfying solution.

wingerlang 23 minutes ago [-] For most apps, can't you just keep the config files on e.g. dropbox?

fspacef 5 hours ago [-] Nice guide, was planning to do something like that myself.

reply konart 13 hours ago [-] https://github.com/tekezo/Karabiner/issues/660 You should probably consider reading this if you are on 10.12 or planning to upgrade reply

xwvvvvwx 11 hours ago [-] Karabiner-Elements works perfectly for me on 10.12 (I only use it to remap caps-lock to escape). https://github.com/tekezo/Karabiner-Elements

konart 1 hour ago [-] Yeah, that's why I've provided the link :) Alternatives!

statictype 8 hours ago [-] That's exactly what I use it for and just set it up yesterday. The instructions on the home page are fairly abysmal though.

rgoodwintx 7 hours ago [-] Ditto to the readme on GH. The key (ahem) bits: 1. Create ~/.karabiner.d/configuration/karabiner.json 2. Put some stuff in it (my simple example below) 3. Install the app from the GH page. Key definitions are in the source code, but if you check the Issues discussion on the Elements project, you'll probably find good examples to send you on your way. Sample karabiner.json: { "profiles": [ { "name": "Default profile", "selected": true, "simple_modifications": { "right_option": "delete_forward" } } ] }

jagger27 6 hours ago [-] I do a similar thing: Caps Lock mapped to Control on hold and also Escape on tap.

dopu 12 hours ago [-] Seconding this. I'm now unable to use CAPS LOCK on my Mac as ESC, which makes using vim slightly more of a pain.

codyb 10 hours ago [-] I map escape to jj which is pretty useful. Thanks to some article somewhere years ago fir that.

evanrelf 12 hours ago [-] System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard > Modifier Keys... > Set Caps Lock Key to Escape

apetresc 11 hours ago [-] I don't believe 'Escape' is one of the options. On macOS Sierra, as for every previous version for me, the only choices to remap through the prefPane are "Caps Lock", "Control", "Option", and "Command". Hence why Seil/KarabinerElements is the first thing I install on a new Mac.

robgough 9 hours ago [-] Apparently the latest beta (10.12.1) has support for this natively. https://github.com/tekezo/Seil/issues/68#issuecomment-250195...

evanrelf 3 hours ago [-] Yeah, sorry I didn't specify. I am running the latest macOS Sierra beta.

apetresc 8 hours ago [-] Oh, well then! Looking forward to the first Sierra update, in that case :) I really did not expect Apple to finally fill this gap that has been around for so many years.

vhost- 10 hours ago [-] OS X nor macOS have the option to set caps lock to escape. This is why people who want to do this use Seil or Karabiner Elements.

melling 12 hours ago [-] I upgraded to the Sierra beta yesterday and the i and h keys were reversed on my external mechanical keyboards. Seemed a bit strange.

Someone 11 hours ago [-] Upgraded to the Sierra beta? Why? The real thing has been out since September 20.

robotmlg 8 hours ago [-] 10.12.1 beta is already out

evanrelf 12 hours ago [-] Happened to me too: https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/64304

falconed 11 hours ago [-] I downgraded to el cap solely because karabiner stopped working in sierra.

melling 6 hours ago [-] My 'a' key didn't work either. I filed a radar yesterday.

reply torspo 3 hours ago [-] Since upgrading to Sierra broke my Karabiner, I started using Ukelele. http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=... I tried Karabiner Elements but couldn't figure out how to replicate my configuration. reply mherdeg 3 hours ago [-] I use this tool because I like to run the binary distribution of nethack from the command line inside an OS X Terminal window, and I am VERY accustomed to using the up/down/left/right arrow keys to move around (from how things used to work when I ran Windows). It seemed really hard to send that binary "hjkl" instead of up/down/left/rgiht arrow key signals any other way and it also seemed hard to compile in the desired behavior by hand (although, hmm). I'm lazy, so I ended up just running Karabiner with this tiny private.xml: https://gist.github.com/mherdeg/4eca69637d176bc81ea19207b911... I found that I context-switched between places where I wanted the arrow key to send hjkl (Terminal.app running the binary) and places where I did not (everywhere else). To make things slightly easier, I set up a "profile" in Terminal.app called "nethack" which uses xterm-16color, displays ANSI colors in a readable way, sets the window title to "Nethack", and launches /usr/local/bin/nethack when this profile is opened. The Karabiner private.xml setting that can be toggled on/off here ends up pretty much only rewriting arrow keys when I want them to. This seems like kind of a crazy workaround but it was really easy to deploy. reply xrjn 12 hours ago [-] Karabiner is quite cool but there were a few gotchas that were non intuitive for me. I wrote a getting started guide[0] a few months ago that starts right from the beginning. [0] https://medium.com/@.sasha/hacking-apple-s-consumerist-cultu... reply ensmotko 12 hours ago [-] Remapping the caps lock key to the delete key (delete the character in front of the cursor) has been a great productivity boost for me. Below is the karabiner.json file that I'm using for this: { "profiles": [ { "name": "Default profile", "selected": true, "simple_modifications": { "caps_lock": "delete_forward" } } ] } reply

copperx 8 hours ago [-] Interesting. Remapping it to Control is the greatest help for me because most Mac programs support basic Emacs keybindings. Using Ctrl a or e to go to the end of line is much easier than pressing Fn.

reply rbalicki 10 hours ago [-] Absolutely love this tool (and Seil, and BetterTouchTool). I shift-reversed the number keys (i.e. shift-6 prints a 6, the 6 by itself prints ^), made my left and right shift's open and close parentheses (I tried to make alt+left-shift a square bracket, but couldn't get that working very well), made caps lock escape or control and shift-reversed the backslash/pipe key. I have trouble using other people's keyboards now but I'm very productive on my own! reply nkurz 3 hours ago [-] I just looked at my Karabiner preferences on my Macbook, and it contains three entries: 1) fn + cursor key to Page Up/Page Down/Home/End. Occasionally nice, but usually not necessary. 2) Option-R to right click Slightly nicer than Ctrl-click, but not essential. 3) Caps Lock to left click Absolutely essential and I can hardly live without it. Tap to click is fine on the touchpad, but "click to drag" was something I hated until I did this mapping. If you haven't already mapped Caps Lock to something else you can't live without, I would highly recommend trying this. You'll probably need Karabiner's partner program Seil to do it: (https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/seil.html.en) reply kozikow 5 hours ago [-] I am using keyboard layout striving for good ratio between performance improvement and switching costs implemented using karabiner: https://kozikow.com/2013/11/15/the-only-alternative-keyboard... . reply psyc 9 hours ago [-] All I hear about lately is how great this app is. I have two use cases that are pretty important to me, and for the life of me I can't figure out how to make them work. I want to remap an ordinary letter key to another ordinary letter key. This app loves special keys to death, but I can't figure out how to do anything with boring keys. I also want to disable the built-in keyboard while I'm using a bluetooth keyboard. Apparently you could maybe do this before Sierra, but not with the Sierra prototype? I don't know. This is the kind of byzantine app where it's next to impossible to know whether you're missing something among its piles of features. reply

kps 3 hours ago [-]

> I want to remap an ordinary letter key to another ordinary letter key.

Regular keys should probably be mapped with a regular keyboard layout, unless 10.12 screwed that up too. See Ukelele (sic) http://www.sil.org/resources/software_fonts/ukelele or just copy and edit a .keylayout file.

guptaneil 9 hours ago [-] FWIW, the Sierra prototype is missing 95% of the features of the full pre-Sierra app. It's merely a proof of concept of the architecture rewrite needed to support Sierra.

reply vikiomega9 12 hours ago [-] Support for Sierra: https://github.com/tekezo/Karabiner-Elements reply

rys 12 hours ago [-] Note that at the time of writing, it can't do multi-key remaps, which might be a deal breaker for you.

lodestone 2 hours ago [-] Check out Brett Terpstra's post on hacking the hyper key on Sierra: http://brettterpstra.com/2016/09/29/a-better-hyper-key-hack-... I'm happy with the fix for now. In fact, I've learned how awesome Hammerspoon is!

Stratoscope 11 hours ago [-] Karabiner is great. After XtraFinder stoped working because I upgraded to El Capitan and didn't want to disable SIP, I tried Karabiner to see if it had the one feature from XtraFinder that was essential for me: changing the crazy Finder key mappings of Enter to rename a file/directory and ⌘O to open it. I like having Enter open a file or directory and F2 rename it, and not just because I'm used to Windows. I open things a lot more than I rename them. Enter is the canonical key for opening something, and does just that in OSX file dialogs. It makes no sense that Enter does one thing in file dialogs but something completely different in Finder. Sure enough, right there in Karabiner's built-in settings were options to remap those keys. reply meta_AU 12 hours ago [-] Would go crazy without this. My work Mac has fn as the far left key, now I have it mapped to Ctrl for most combinations but it is clever enough to know that fn + down is pgdown. reply izacus 12 hours ago [-] It's a great piece of software. I maintain a few Macs for my family and they don't use Apple keyboards for various reasons. Since Apple refuses to add support for standard PC layouts (and creates monstrosities like localized keyboard layout which has @ key on shift + alt + 2 which causes no end of support requests), having Karabiner remap it to the standard PC keyboard layout matching the hardware is a huge boon. reply

Someone 10 hours ago [-] System Preferences => Change Keyboard Type… gives an UI that directs you to press a few keys that help detect your keyboard layout. That has worked fine for me (N=1) when adding a Dell keyboard to a Mac Mini. I think that UI was added for the Mac Mini, as it was the first Mac sold without keyboard ("bring your own keyboard and mouse")

izacus 3 hours ago [-] Detection doesn't help if the OS doesn't include the layout at all. :/

btgeekboy 4 hours ago [-] Doing that, plus swapping Cmd + Opt in System Preferences, is all I need to use a standard PC keyboard on a Mac. Works great.

reply seagoj 5 hours ago [-] I use karabiner to turn off the internal keyboard when I connect an external keyboard. It let's me put a tenkeyless Thinkpad keyboard right over the MacBook keyboard. The only exception is that the power key still functions. reply shpx 8 hours ago [-] Somewhat related, if you have ever wanted to use emacs (or readline) style keybindings on macOS check out https://gist.github.com/cheapRoc/9670905 Most of the keybindings don't seem to work on El Capitan, but just having a system wide alt-b and alt-f is very nice. reply greyhat 8 hours ago [-] I'm able to keep about 15 years of muscle memory for Windows shortcuts because of this excellent program. So glad it exists. reply rotskoff 12 hours ago [-] I have been using Karabiner for about a year now to disable my option key, which was permanently depressed due to water damage. I haven't exploited it for my productivity, but it saved me a good deal of money! reply matheweis 11 hours ago [-] I use Karabiner daily at work; the ergonomic keyboard I really like doesn't have Mac drivers, and Karabiner fixes all of the "wrong" keys. reply achikin 13 hours ago [-] I usually swap Alt and Command keys on my external Microsoft Sculpt keyboard. Is there a way to distinct between keyboards in Karabiner as you can do in standard keyboard preferences? reply

izacus 13 hours ago [-] You have options "Don't apply mappings to internal laptop keyboard" and "Don't apply mappings to Apple keyboards". Will that do?

achikin 12 hours ago [-] Yes, that did the job. Thank you!

reply webwielder2 12 hours ago [-] An incredibly useful tool with an astonishingly bad UI. reply thought_alarm 8 hours ago [-] I've been using Karabiner for years to map the volume and media keys to a 1987 vintage Apple Extended Keyboard. Incidentally, remapping Caps Lock to Control on that keyboard required a soldering iron and a pair of side cutters. But it works. reply aladine 5 hours ago [-] Yes, I used a corsair K70 mechanical keyboard and Karabiner helps me to remap Alt and Command key. It is super useful. reply

STRiDEX 6 hours ago [-] I use karabiner to fix a chattering spacebar on a way to expensive keyboard to have a chattering spacebar. Works great! saved my day. reply richdougherty 8 hours ago [-] Great tool. I remap Right-Option to Right-Control. :) reply kefka_p 11 hours ago [-] Have been using Karabiner for years. Works great if you have an "I set my drink too close to my keyboard" moment and need to make a spare PC keyboard work with your Mac to meet your deadlines. =D reply ajmurmann 12 hours ago [-] I've also had great success with this to have different scroll direction for trackpad and mouse wheel. reply transfire 11 hours ago [-] Honestly, someone needs to go back and rethink the way keyboard input is handled in Unixes. There are a lot of neat ideas out there that just can't be done without a programmable keyboard controller. reply peascouih 12 hours ago [-] I use it with my marble mouse logitech to emulate scrolling... love it reply

1057x31337 12 hours ago [-] I've been using karabiner and seil for a long time. Both are great. reply nicolasMLV 9 hours ago [-] been using it for 1 year to swap keys (beer+keyboard accident...) and it works well reply kardashian007 7 hours ago [-] Karabiner doesn't work at all with Sierra. There's some "new" project called Karabiner Elements is supposedly half-finished, but yet people keep donating hoping they'll get something usable soon. Not holding my breath and it would be completely new and will likely lack useful features of the abandoned one. It would be more useful to more people to temporarily fix Karabiner and work on Elements later, but no, gotta ignore paying users and stick to "the plan." reply

rgoodwintx 7 hours ago [-] Elements is a bridge while the main project is rewritten. (It's in the name..."elements" of the original project.) They stated in several places that it can't be "temporarily" fixed due to major structural changes to (I believe) the keyboard driver in Sierra. Also pretty sure that Karabiner has been free forever. (Donations accepted, but you know how rarely that happens.) Just keeping the record straight, as someone who loves the app and, yes was temporarily inconvenienced, but bravo to them for rapidly putting out something to tide users over.

reply chris_wot 11 hours ago [-] I keep trying to get Karabiner to load but something is stopping it. Wish I could tell, I've needed it in the past to remap keys to get around VirtualBox quirks. reply

fspacef 5 hours ago [-] What version of osx are you using?

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