One layout per keyboard.
A macOS menu bar app that switches the input source automatically when you switch keyboards.
Website · Download · Changelog · Issues
macOS can switch input sources per app or with a shortcut — but never per keyboard. If your keyboards have different layouts, you end up switching by hand every time you move between them. Keychange does it for you: assign a layout to each keyboard once, and it switches the moment you start typing on that device.
- Automatic switching — the input source follows whichever keyboard you type on
- Per-keyboard mappings — pick a layout for each keyboard, or leave one alone
- Menu bar badge — always see the active input source at a glance
- Remembers your keyboards — mappings survive unplugging and reconnecting
- Private by design — keystrokes are only checked for which device they came from; nothing is recorded or sent anywhere
Download Keychange.dmg,
drag Keychange.app into /Applications, and launch it.
Or with Homebrew:
brew tap dennistimmermann/tap
brew install --cask keychangeKeychange asks for Input Monitoring permission so it can detect which keyboard you're typing on.
Click the menu bar icon to see your connected keyboards. Each one gets a dropdown, and the switch in the header turns Keychange off.
Tip: option-click the menu bar icon to see each keyboard's vendor and product ID — handy when two keyboards have similar names.
| Choice | What it does |
|---|---|
| Input sources | Every layout you have enabled in System Settings. Pick the one that fits your keyboard. |
| Don't switch | Keychange leaves the input source as is while you type on this keyboard. |
| Hidden | The keyboard drops out of the list, and stops switching with it. For the mice and dongles that report themselves as keyboards. Option-click the menu bar icon, or open the settings, to bring it back. |
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Switch layout | Which side of the key event the switch lands on. After key press: detection happens just after a key has been sent, so the very first character still prints in the old layout. Before key press: Keychange intercepts the key press and changes the layout on the fly — every key press in every app except password fields passes through it. Needs the Accessibility permission. |
| On external layout change | What Keychange does when something else changes the input source. Disable: off until you turn it back on. Pause: off, then back on by itself once the input source matches your keyboard again. Ignore: your choice stands until you switch keyboards. Reset: your choice stands until your next key press. |
| Check for updates automatically | Looks for new releases on GitHub and offers to install them. This check is the only network request the app makes. |
| Launch at login | Starts Keychange when you log in. |
Requires Xcode 26 and macOS 14 or later.
git clone https://github.com/dennistimmermann/keychange.git
cd keychange
xcodebuild -project Keychange.xcodeproj -scheme Keychange -configuration Release buildAn IOHIDManager watches keyboard devices and reports which one produced each key event; a device
change looks up that keyboard's mapping and calls TISSelectInputSource. Because the keystroke and
the switch race each other, the first character normally still belongs to the old layout — that is
what "Switch layout → Before key press" fixes, using a CGEventTap that re-translates the character with the
target layout (UCKeyTranslate), or briefly withholds the key press when switching to an input
method that composes from key codes at delivery time.
Tagging a commit vX.Y.Z and pushing the tag builds that version and attaches it to a GitHub
release.
Bugs and requests go to Issues.
Keychange is free and stays free. If it saved you some friction, you can leave a tip on Ko-fi or sponsor me on GitHub.
Inspired by autokbisw by @ohueter and @jeantil, a command-line tool that solves the same problem.
Automatic updates are powered by Sparkle, MIT licensed.
MIT © 2026 Dennis Timmermann