Easy way to remap non-modifier keys on Mac?

Question

I want to remap § to ` and ± to ~ on my Mac keyboard because they are located in a place I am not used to. Is there an easy way to do this?

Answer 1

Remapping § to ` and ± to ~ worked on my Mac (running OS X 10.15.6) without additional software with the following code snippet.

hidutil property --set '{"UserKeyMapping":
    [{"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc":0x700000035,
      "HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst":0x700000064},
     {"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc":0x700000064,
      "HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst":0x700000035}]
}'

To do this automatically at startup - Create a new file named ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.loginscript.plist

with the following content:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.user.loginscript</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/hidutil</string>
        <string>property</string>
        <string>--set</string>
        <string>{"UserKeyMapping":[{"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc":0x700000035, "HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst":0x700000064}, {"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc":0x700000064, "HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst":0x700000035}]}</string>
    </array>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

The file needs to be registered with a one-off execution of the following command:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.loginscript.plist

See also this solution which explains how to use Automator instead of launchctl.

Answer 2

The two apps most commonly used to do this are

Ukelele

and

Karabiner

There’s a lot of other options, but these are the easiest in practice for most people to just manage their layouts easily.

Answer 3

https://github.com/tekezo/Karabiner-Elements/blob/master/usage/README.md#how-to-configure-karabiner-elements

Here is explains "EXACTLY" the problem that I am having with a simple solution.

You need to update karabiner.json and add this part:

{
    "profiles": [
        {
            "name": "Default profile",
            "selected": true,
            "simple_modifications": {
                "non_us_backslash": "grave_accent_and_tilde",
                "grave_accent_and_tilde" : "non_us_backslash"
            }
        }
    ]
}

Answer 4

After MacOS 14.3, hidutil now requires admin privileges to run certain remaps and if you want to run it automatically it will not work the same way the first answer did.

To resolve this issue I had to do it this way.

Create a new script to any folder you want.

#!/bin/zsh
sudo hidutil property --set '{"UserKeyMapping":
    [{"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc":0x700000035,
      "HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst":0x700000064},
     {"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc":0x700000064,
      "HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst":0x700000035}]
}'

Create a file under

/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.yourusername.remapkeys.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.yourusername.remapkeys</string>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/bin/zsh</string>
        <string>/path/to/your/script/com.yourusername.remapkeys.sh</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Set permissions

sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.yourusername.remapkeys.plist
sudo chmod 644 /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.yourusername.remapkeys.plist

Load the daemon

sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.yourusername.remapkeys.plist

Restart and test