Say you’re a Mac person who simply obtained a flowery new keyboard, but it surely has a Home windows structure. Otherwise you wish to use the identical keyboard with each Home windows and Mac machines. Otherwise you’ve gotten used to a particular structure, and now your muscle reminiscence is all unsuitable.

The most important variations between Macs and Home windows PCs are within the backside row modifier keys. Home windows computer systems have Ctrl, Win, and Alt, whereas Macs have Management, Possibility, and Command. macOS mechanically maps the Alt to Possibility and Win to Command. However Home windows makes use of the Management key for many of the shortcuts that Macs use the Command key for, which implies you must bear in mind to repeat / paste utilizing your pinkie on one pc and utilizing your index finger on one other. Who desires that?

You might attempt to rewire your mind — and there’s one thing to be stated for neuroplasticity — or you could possibly remap your keyboard so the modifiers are the place your fingers need them to be. 

You probably have a fancy mechanical keyboard, it’d include software program to allow you to remap the keys on the {hardware} stage. Or your keyboard might need a Mac / Home windows swap that flips the modifier positions. However you may remap any keyboard, together with the one in your MacBook, with a few free macOS instruments. 

In the event you simply wish to put the modifier keys the place your fingers count on them to be, you are able to do that inside macOS. 

In the event you’re utilizing macOS Ventura:

• Open System Settings, scroll to Keyboard, and choose Keyboard Shortcuts… 
• Hit Modifier Keys on the backside of the left menu pane. 
• Choose your keyboard from the dropdown menu. 

In the event you’re utilizing macOS Monterey:

• Open System Preferences and choose Keyboard. 
• Hit the Modifier Keys … button on the decrease proper 
• Choose your keyboard from the dropdown menu. 

Right here you may swap the areas of Caps Lock, Management, Possibility, Command, and Operate (or Globe) keys. On my MacBook’s built-in keyboard, I exploit this to place the Command key the place Caps Lock normally goes since that’s the place I put it on my different keyboards. On my exterior keyboard, I’ve already modified Caps Lock to Management within the firmware, so I exploit this instrument to swap Management and Command, which places Command on the Caps Lock key on that keyboard, too. 

Sure, that is bizarre. However not as bizarre as dedicating an enormous key on the house row to Caps Lock. 

For extra complicated modifications or to remap different keys, you should utilize a free program referred to as Karabiner Parts. Karabiner can assign nearly any keycode to any key, in addition to carry out extra complicated modifications. I exploit it to swap the Backspace and backslash keys on my MacBook’s inner keyboard to match my exterior keyboard and swap Command and Management on my exterior keyboard in lieu of the built-in instrument. 

Karabiner can do rather more than simply swap key positions, although. You may change the features of the perform keys, assign hotkeys to launch particular packages or ship a number of keycodes with one key — turning Caps Lock into Cmd + Management + Possibility + Shift, for instance. You can also make keys do one factor when tapped and one other when held, use the keyboard to regulate the mouse cursor, and extra. And you’ll assign totally different behaviors to totally different keyboards. 

The simplest approach to fiddle with complicated modifications utilizing Karabiner is to obtain a couple of that different customers have submitted. It’s also possible to write your personal in a JSON file, however that’s manner outdoors the scope of this text. Even the net GUI that was constructed to make it simpler just isn’t precisely newbie pleasant. 

One phrase of warning: be sure you don’t double-dip. I couldn’t work out why my Command and Management keys weren’t swapped till I noticed that I had arrange the identical swap in each macOS and Karabiner Parts. To paraphrase Mitch Hedberg: I remapped a remap; it was again to regular. 

I’ve barely scratched the floor of Karabiner Parts myself. Although my choice continues to be for keyboards the place you are able to do the entire above in firmware, Karabiner works on any outdated keyboard, and that’s why it’s nice.