WinKeyr
100% On-Device · No Kernel Extension
Ctrl+C copies.
Like it always did.
Switching to a Mac shouldn't cost you thirty years of muscle memory. WinKeyr rewrites Windows shortcuts into their macOS equivalents in an event tap, before the app in front of you ever sees the key. No kernel extension, no driver, no restart — and terminals are excluded out of the box, so Ctrl+C still interrupts.
v1.2.1 · macOS 13+, including 27 Golden Gate · Apple Silicon & Intel · Signed & notarized by Apple · No account
How it works
Install. Allow. Type normally.
Drag it into Applications
Open the DMG, drag WinKeyr across, launch it. It lives in the menu bar — there's no Dock icon and no window demanding attention.
Grant Accessibility, once
macOS won't let any app read your keystrokes until you say so. Until you tick WinKeyr in Privacy & Security → Accessibility, nothing is remapped at all — and the app says exactly that rather than looking broken.
Use the shortcuts you know
Ctrl+C, Ctrl+S, Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+Y, Home, End, Alt+Tab, Alt+F4, F2. The chord is rewritten in the tap; the app in front just receives the macOS equivalent and behaves normally.
Check any key in the tester
Settings has a key tester: press a chord and it shows what the app underneath would receive and which rule was responsible. When nothing happens it tells you why — no rule, a rule switched off, or one that only applies in Finder.
What it maps
The shortcuts your hands already know.
Every rule below is individually switchable, and Shift is preserved throughout — so Ctrl+Shift+← selects by word and Alt+Shift+Tab cycles backwards.
Ctrl becomes Cmd
The blanket rule, and the one that does most of the work. Ctrl+A selects all, Ctrl+C copies, Ctrl+X cuts, Ctrl+V pastes, Ctrl+Z undoes, Ctrl+S saves and Ctrl+F finds. So do Ctrl+N, Ctrl+T, Ctrl+W, Ctrl+P, Ctrl+Q and Ctrl+B/I/U — it's every letter and digit, not a list someone had to remember to add.
Ctrl → Cmd
Ctrl+Y redoes
macOS hides redo behind Cmd+Shift+Z, which nobody arriving from Windows guesses. Ctrl+Y is mapped straight onto it.
Redo
Word navigation
Ctrl+← and Ctrl+→ jump a word; Ctrl+Backspace and Ctrl+Delete delete one. On macOS those are Option chords, which is the single most jarring difference when you type for a living.
Option under the hood
Home and End that work
Home and End go to the start and end of the line; add Ctrl for the start and end of the document, and Shift to select instead of move — Shift+End selects to the end of the line, Ctrl+Shift+Home back to the top of the document. On stock macOS these two keys do something else entirely, or nothing at all.
Line & document
Alt+Tab switches apps
Hold Alt to keep cycling exactly as you would on Windows, and add Shift to go backwards. Alt+F4 closes the window.
Hold to cycle
Finder behaves like Explorer
Enter opens the selection and F2 renames it — the pair the other way round from stock macOS. Delete moves a file to the Trash instead of doing nothing at all, and Shift+Delete skips it. Finder-scoped, so nothing changes anywhere else.
Finder-scoped
Back, reload, paste plain
Alt+← and Alt+→ go back and forward through a browser's history and Finder's folders. F5 reloads. Ctrl+Shift+V pastes without carrying the font and color along.
Browser habits
The system chords
Ctrl+Alt+Delete opens Force Quit and Ctrl+Shift+Esc opens Activity Monitor — the Mac's Task Manager. Print Screen saves a picture of the screen; add Shift to draw a region.
Task Manager & PrtScn
Features
Small, honest, and easy to switch off.
A menu-bar app that does one job and tells you the truth about it — including what it costs you.
No kernel extension, no driver
WinKeyr is a plain
Quit and it's gone
CGEventTap. There's no system extension to approve, no restart, and nothing left behind in the kernel — quit it and you're back to stock macOS instantly. That's the main practical difference from Karabiner.Terminals already excluded
Terminal, iTerm2, Ghostty, Alacritty, kitty, WezTerm, Warp and Emacs ship on the exclusion list, because a keymapper that breaks Ctrl+C in a shell is worse than no keymapper at all.
Ctrl+C still interrupts
Always leave this app alone
Always Leave <App> Alone in the menu bar stops remapping in whatever you're using right now — for a remote-desktop session, a VM, or a game that wants the raw keys. One click adds that app to the excluded list permanently: it is the same list Settings shows and the same one your exported settings carry, and it stays that way until you take the app off it. Pause is the temporary one.
Permanent, and it says so
Pause, and it comes back
Stand WinKeyr down for 5, 15 or 60 minutes when a Windows chord is in the way of one thing you're doing. The menu counts down to the second, and it switches itself back on — unlike a master switch you turn off and rediscover a week later.
With a countdown
Carry your setup across
Export every rule and your excluded apps to a file, and import it on another Mac. The Accessibility grant is per-machine and never transfers, so the least the app can do is not make you re-tick everything else.
Export & import
It says when macOS stops it
While any app asks for secure keyboard entry — a password field, or a terminal sitting at a
Named, not guessed
sudo prompt — macOS stops delivering keys to every app of this kind, and the rules quietly stop. WinKeyr says so and names the app that asked, instead of looking broken.A key tester that doesn't lie
Press a chord and see what the app underneath would receive, and which rule did it. WinKeyr never remaps its own windows — without that, the tester would read its own output back as input and report Ctrl+C becoming Cmd+C twice over.
Honest by design
Scroll direction, split in two
Reverse the mouse wheel and the trackpad independently — which macOS's own Natural scrolling can't do, because it flips both together. Both off by default.
Two switches
Every rule is a switch
Don't want Home and End remapped? Turn that rule off and leave the rest. There's a master switch too.
Granular
Hide it completely, and still get it back
The menu-bar item can be hidden, for anyone who wants a remapper they never see. WinKeyr has no Dock icon and no menu bar of its own, so hiding that one item takes away the whole interface — which is why the way back was built first: opening WinKeyr again from your Applications folder brings the item straight back, and the confirmation says exactly that before it disappears.
Invisible, not unreachable
Thirteen languages, and you choose
English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Turkish and Simplified Chinese — picked in WinKeyr' own Settings rather than inherited from your Mac, and switching immediately with no relaunch. The key names go with it: in German, VoiceOver reads Ctrl and Return as German words rather than saying them in English inside a German sentence. Letter keys stay as printed, because the legend on your keyboard doesn't change language.
13 languages
Nothing leaves your Mac
Keystrokes are rewritten in memory and never recorded, stored, or sent anywhere. No account, no analytics, no telemetry.
No keylogging
Signed, notarized, universal
Developer ID signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens with a double-click. One universal build runs natively on Apple Silicon and Intel.
macOS 13+
Pricing
Free for you. Fair for work.
Personal use is free forever — every rule, no key, no account, no nag screens. If WinKeyr earns its keep at your job, a one-time commercial license keeps it supported.
Personal
Free forever
For individuals and personal projects
- Every mapping rule, all switchable
- Per-app exclusions and the key tester
- Scroll-direction rules
- 100% on-device — nothing uploaded
- No account, no nag screens
- Free updates forever
Commercial
$5 / device
One-time payment — no subscription
- Everything in Personal
- Use commercially at work
- One-time payment — no subscription
- Free updates forever
- Supports solo indie development
The personal tier is the full app — buy a commercial license only if you use WinKeyr commercially. One seat per device, paid once, yours for life. Secure checkout via Stripe; your license key is emailed instantly.
Download & install
Get set up in seconds.
Download it and drag it into Applications. The only setup is granting Accessibility once — macOS won't let any app read keystrokes without it.
Version 1.2.1 · macOS 13+ · Free updates forever
macOS 13 Ventura or later, including macOS 27 Golden Gate · Apple Silicon or Intel
Everything WinKeyr needs is in the app — no driver, no Homebrew, no Terminal. One universal build runs natively on both architectures.
Opens with a double-click
WinKeyr is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so it opens cleanly the first time — no
Open Anyway trip through System Settings. Open the DMG, drag WinKeyr into Applications, and launch it.Grant Accessibility, once per Mac
System Settings › Privacy & Security › Accessibility → tick WinKeyr. Until you do, nothing is remapped and the app says so. The permission is per-machine and never transfers, so you'll grant it again on a second Mac.
Terminals keep working
Terminal, iTerm2, Ghostty, Alacritty, kitty, WezTerm, Warp and Emacs are excluded out of the box, so Ctrl+C still interrupts. Add your own in Settings, or use Always Leave <App> Alone for the app in front of you right now.
Check the file you downloaded
WinKeyr is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, and macOS checks that every time you open it — that is the check that catches a file altered on its way to you. To confirm it yourself, compare the SHA-256 of your copy with the one published for the
WinKeyr.dmg this page serves.SHA-256 checksum
Published checksum
Run this on your download and compare
shasum -a 256 ~/Downloads/WinKeyr.dmg
Or have your Mac compare them for you: save WinKeyr.dmg.sha256 beside the download and run shasum -a 256 -c WinKeyr.dmg.sha256.
FAQ
Common questions.
Is WinKeyr really free?
Personal use is free forever — every rule, no key, no account, no trial timer, no nag screens. If you use WinKeyr at work, a one-time $5 commercial license per device keeps it supported.
Do I have to give it Accessibility access?
Yes, and there's no way around it. macOS refuses to let any app see your keystrokes without it — that's the protection working. Until you grant it, WinKeyr remaps nothing and says so plainly instead of looking broken. Everything happens on your Mac; keystrokes are rewritten in memory and never recorded, stored or sent anywhere.
Won't this break Ctrl+C in the terminal?
No — that's the first thing it handles. Terminal, iTerm2, Ghostty, Alacritty, kitty, WezTerm, Warp and Emacs ship excluded, so Ctrl+C still sends SIGINT. Add any other app to the list in Settings, or use Always Leave <App> Alone in the menu bar to stop remapping in whatever you're in right now — it adds that app to the excluded list for good, and Pause is the temporary one.
How is this different from Karabiner-Elements?
Karabiner is more powerful and installs a driver-level virtual keyboard, which means a system extension approval and a restart. WinKeyr is a plain
CGEventTap — no kernel extension, no driver, nothing to approve at boot, and you can quit it and be back to stock instantly. The trade is scope: WinKeyr does the Windows keymap well rather than arbitrary remapping.What exactly gets remapped?
Ctrl+key becomes Cmd+key across the board, so select all, copy, paste, save, undo and find all work — Ctrl+A selects all, Ctrl+C copies. Ctrl+Y redoes. Ctrl+←/→ jumps a word and Ctrl+Backspace deletes one. Home and End go to line start and end; add Ctrl for document start and end, and Shift to select on the way rather than just move — Shift+Home selects to the start of the line, Ctrl+Shift+End to the end of the document. Alt+Tab switches apps, Alt+F4 closes the window, F2 renames in Finder, and Ctrl+Shift+Esc opens Activity Monitor. Shift is preserved throughout, so Ctrl+Shift+← selects by word. Alt+←/→ go back and forward, F5 reloads, Ctrl+Shift+V pastes without formatting, Ctrl+Alt+Delete opens Force Quit and Print Screen captures the screen. In Finder, Enter opens and Delete moves to the Trash.
What is deliberately left alone?
Ctrl+Tab, Ctrl+Space, Ctrl+Esc, Ctrl+F1–F20, and any chord that already contains Command. Those either already behave the way Windows does or would collide with something worse.
What do I lose?
Not Ctrl+A — that becomes Select All, exactly as it does on Windows. What the blanket Ctrl → Cmd rule costs you is macOS's own emacs bindings, which put start of line on Ctrl+A, end of line on Ctrl+E and kill on Ctrl+K, everywhere WinKeyr is active. That's the deal Windows muscle memory asks for, and it's stated up front rather than discovered later. Exclude an app to get them back there.
Can I flip the scroll direction too?
Yes, with two separate switches, both off by default. macOS's own "Natural scrolling" flips a mouse and a trackpad together, so turning it off to fix a wheel leaves the trackpad backwards. WinKeyr splits them: reverse the mouse wheel, the trackpad, or both. If Natural scrolling is already off, Settings notices and tells you these would put you back where you started.
How do I know a shortcut is actually being remapped?
Settings has a key tester. Press any chord and it shows what the app underneath would receive and which rule was responsible — and when nothing happens, it says why. It's honest because WinKeyr never remaps its own windows; otherwise the tester would be reading its own output back as input.
What languages does WinKeyr speak?
Thirteen: English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Turkish and Simplified Chinese. Settings has a picker — Auto — match macOS, then each language named in itself — so you can run WinKeyr in Spanish on an English Mac, and the windows switch the moment you choose, with no relaunch. The key names are translated too, including the ones VoiceOver reads aloud: in German you hear the German words for Control and Return rather than English words inside a German sentence. Letter keys stay as printed, because the legend on your own keyboard doesn't change language.
Can I hide the menu-bar icon?
Yes, in Settings. Because WinKeyr has no Dock icon and no menu bar of its own, hiding that one item takes away the entire interface — the app keeps running and keeps remapping. So the way back exists before you need it: open WinKeyr again from your Applications folder and the item comes straight back, and Reset All Settings restores it too. The confirmation tells you all of that before it disappears.
Does WinKeyr upload anything?
Nothing about you, and nothing you type. There's no account, no analytics and no telemetry. With no license key entered, the only connection it makes is the update check. Enter a business license key and the app also re-checks that key about once a day, sending the key, a hash of your Mac's serial number and the name you gave this computer, so a business can tell its seats apart. That's the whole list, and the privacy policy spells out every field.
How do I update it?
WinKeyr checks for updates about once a week and offers them in-app — updates are signed, and one that doesn't verify is refused. You can also re-download the DMG from this page at any time and drag the new WinKeyr into Applications over the old one.
Will macOS warn me about an unidentified developer?
No. WinKeyr is signed with an Apple Developer ID and notarized by Apple, so it opens with a normal double-click the first time — no Open Anyway trip through System Settings, no Terminal.