everyday mac tools

Caps Lock keeps turning on by accident on a Mac

· 6 min read

If Caps Lock keeps turning on when you meant to press A, Tab or Shift, you can switch the key off. Open System Settings, click Keyboard, click Keyboard Shortcuts, choose Modifier Keys, and set the Caps Lock key to No Action, or to Escape or Control if you would rather it did something useful. The change applies straight away, to one keyboard at a time, and Restore Defaults puts it back.

Switch Caps Lock off, or give it another job

  1. Open System Settings and click Keyboard in the sidebar.
  2. Click the Keyboard Shortcuts button.
  3. Choose Modifier Keys from the list on the left.
  4. If more than one keyboard is connected, pick the one you type on from the Select keyboard menu at the top. Each keyboard keeps its own settings, so the built-in keyboard on a MacBook and an external keyboard are changed separately.
  5. Open the menu next to the Caps Lock key and choose an option.
  6. Click Done.

What to choose depends on how you work:

  • No Action makes the key do nothing at all. This is the simplest fix if you rarely type long runs of capitals; Shift still gives you a capital whenever you need one.
  • Escape suits anyone who presses Escape often: in a code editor, to cancel a dialog, or to close a menu. Caps Lock is far easier to reach than the Escape key up in the corner.
  • Control puts a modifier under your little finger, which some people find more comfortable for Control shortcuts than the key at the bottom left.
  • Command or Option are on the list too, though most keyboards already have two of each.

When Caps Lock switches your language instead

If you type in more than one language, Caps Lock may be doing a second job. Once a Mac has more than one input source, macOS offers to use the Caps Lock key to switch to and from a Latin input source such as ABC or U.S. With that option on, a quick press changes the input source and a longer press turns capitals on. Someone who switched it on years ago, or never knowingly did, ends up with a key that behaves differently depending on how firmly it is pressed.

To check, open System Settings, Keyboard, and click Edit next to Input Sources. The Caps Lock option is in the sheet that opens, alongside the setting that shows the input menu in the menu bar. Turn it off if you would rather switch languages with Control-Space or the Globe key.

Knowing when it is on

macOS gives several signals, and it helps to know where to look.

  • The key itself. Apple keyboards and MacBooks light a small green indicator on the Caps Lock key.
  • Password fields. A Caps Lock symbol appears inside the field as you type, which is the usual reason a correct password gets rejected.
  • The text cursor. Since macOS Sonoma, a small Caps Lock indicator appears beside the insertion point in most apps while capitals are on.

That last one matters when the keyboard light is out of sight: on a keyboard that has no light, or with a MacBook closed on a stand and an external keyboard in front of it.

Fix text that already came out in capitals

A paragraph typed in capitals does not need retyping. Many Mac apps can change the case of selected text.

  1. Select the text.
  2. Choose Edit, Transformations, then Make Lower Case. You can also Control-click the selection and choose Transformations from the shortcut menu.
  3. Choose Capitalize instead when you want a capital at the start of every word, as in a title.

This works in TextEdit, Mail and many other apps that use the standard Mac text system. Make Lower Case lowers everything, including names and the first word of each sentence, so read the result back before you send it. Word processing and page layout apps with their own formatting menus usually keep a case option under Format instead.

If you want to keep Caps Lock, but harder to hit

Not everyone wants the key gone. If you type headings in capitals, or someone else who uses the Mac relies on it, there are gentler options.

  • Turn it off on one keyboard only. Because Modifier Keys is set per keyboard, you can leave Caps Lock working on the built-in keyboard and switch it off on the external one you keep catching, or the other way round.
  • Slow Keys. System Settings, Accessibility, Keyboard, Slow Keys makes the Mac wait a moment before it accepts a key press. It applies to every key, not just Caps Lock, so it suits a tremor or heavy-handed typing rather than one stray key. Typing with arthritis on a Mac covers it alongside other keyboard settings.

Give the key a bigger job

Once Caps Lock is free, it is the best-placed spare key on the keyboard. Escape and Control are built into macOS. Trill can turn it into a Hyper Key instead. Switch the Hyper Key on in Trill’s Shortcuts screen (it starts off) and Caps Lock becomes ✦: hold it and press another key, and that key arrives with Control, Option, Shift and Command held at once. Almost no app uses that combination, so shortcuts built on it rarely clash with the ones apps already have. Tapped on its own, the key sends Escape by default, does nothing, or still toggles Caps Lock, so stray capitals stop either way. Hold it for a moment and a cheat sheet shows every gesture and shortcut that works in the app in front.

Trill also handles trackpad gestures and window snapping. It needs macOS 14 Sonoma or later, is free for 24 hours with every feature, then $29 once, and macOS may ask for Input Monitoring permission for the Hyper Key. If all you want is a Caps Lock key that does nothing, the Modifier Keys setting above is all it takes. If you start building your own shortcuts and one of them stops responding, a keyboard shortcut stopped working on a Mac shows how to find what took it.

Questions

Does switching Caps Lock off change my password? No. A capital letter is the same character whether it came from Shift or Caps Lock, so type the capitals in your password with Shift and it works exactly as before.

I changed the setting and nothing happened. Why? Check the Select keyboard menu in Modifier Keys. The built-in keyboard and each external keyboard have separate settings, and the change only applies to the one shown there.

How do I get Caps Lock back? Open Modifier Keys again, pick the keyboard, and click Restore Defaults, or set the Caps Lock key menu back to Caps Lock.

What else do people usually remap? The Mac settings developers change first on a new machine covers Caps Lock alongside key repeat and the other keyboard settings worth changing early.