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I keep accidentally hitting the Escape key when I'm typing. I'd like to move to more towards the center of the Touch Bar, or require a double-click to activate it. Is this possible?

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There’s no native way to move (or adjust the sensitivity of) the escape key on the Touch Bar.

Some potential solutions:

  1. Upgrade to a new MacBook with a physical ESC key
  2. Use Better Touch Tool to temporarily hide your entire Touch Bar (solutions below)
  3. Use an external keyboard

Using BTT to hide the Touchbar

This solution was posed in a BTT GitHub issue:

  1. Uncheck "Show MacOS Control Strip" and "Show Escape Button" in general touchbar settings.
  2. Create a button with no action and put a bunch of blank spaces in the name and make the button black (this moves the button you'll create in the following step over to the right so your pinky won't hit it).
  3. Create a "Toggle BTT Touchbar" button with "Toggle BetterTouchTool Touchbar" as its action. This let's you get the standard touchbar back if/when you need it.

This solution is from the Apple discussion board:

Click "TouchBar" Click "General Touch Bar Settings" Check "Enable Touch Bar Support" Uncheck "Show macOS Control Strip" Check Show "BTT icon in Control Strip" All Other items are unchecked Click Close 14  Click "+ TouchBar Button" Give the button a Name...I chose "Unhide the Touch Bar with Satan Spawn ESC key" For "Predefined Action:" choose "Toggle BTT Touch Bar”  Click "Advanced Configuration" for the button and choose where you want it to appear...I chose the right side for "Item Placement..."  Now my Touch Bar looks like this:  With nothing else on the Touch Bar:
 This Touch Bar persists across all apps. If I tap the button, the regular Touch Bar returns

NOTE: You may also need to hide the BTT icon in settings, as it will replace the ESC key when the Touch Bar is empty.

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    You say there’s no way to change it, but you reference BTT to customize it, which implies there is a way to change it. How would you utilize BTT to achieve the OP’s goal?
    – Allan
    Commented Dec 30, 2019 at 3:50
  • @Allan By “native” I mean that there’s no way to do it without 3rd party software - does that make sense? Regarding specific implementation of BTT for this issue, I agree that I left it vague - this is both bc I don’t have direct experience with the tool and from what I’ve read there are a few different solutions (one of which was included in the linked thread, which I’ve now highlighted as part of the BTT bullet).
    – JBallin
    Commented Dec 30, 2019 at 4:06
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    What I’m getting at, is I’m trying to follow your links, but none lead to a solution. If there is something on the BTT site, it should be summarized here and linked to for reference. The ultimate goal is to provide an answer to the question and that’s what bings the upvotes.
    – Allan
    Commented Dec 30, 2019 at 4:20
  • @Allan makes sense. I did some more research and updated the answer. Thanks for the feedback!
    – JBallin
    Commented Dec 30, 2019 at 4:49
  • Thank you for this! It was also a great way to start to understand how BTT works, which I had been having trouble with.
    – Adam_G
    Commented Jan 2, 2020 at 0:26
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I have the same problem. You can use Bar None and then you will need to press the fn key in order to enable the Touch Bar, thus the Esc button too. It can also be downloaded via GitHub

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Maybe you can stick something there (thin and soft so it won't scratch the screen). Then dedicate a physical key (e.g. CapsLock or backtick1) to ESC.

My test shows two layers of tissue can make it completely insensitive.

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  • I’ve seen other people use tape as well! Good point about the ability to map another key to ESC.
    – JBallin
    Commented Dec 30, 2019 at 6:56
  • electrical tape works great
    – michael
    Commented Oct 23, 2020 at 15:12

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