Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Karabiner

Karabiner, previously called KeyRemap4MacBook, is a very powerful keyboard remapper for Mac OS X.

Karabiner

Karabiner Reviews and Details

This page is designed to help you find out whether Karabiner is good and if it is the right choice for you.

Screenshots and images

  • Karabiner Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-06

Features & Specs

  1. Customizability

    Karabiner-Elements allows users to remap keys and create complex keyboard configurations that can greatly enhance productivity and convenience.

  2. Open Source

    Being an open-source tool, Karabiner-Elements is free to use and comes with the potential for community contributions and transparency in development.

  3. Flexibility

    The tool supports a wide range of devices and configurations, making it adaptable to various user needs and setups.

  4. Ease of Use

    The user interface is designed to be intuitive, allowing both novice and experienced users to easily configure and remap their keyboards.

  5. Regular Updates

    The tool is actively maintained with regular updates, ensuring compatibility with the latest macOS versions and adding new features.

Badges

Promote Karabiner. You can add any of these badges on your website.

SaaSHub badge
Show embed code

Videos

REVIEW: Should you play the Vetterli 71 Karabiner? [Hunt Gun Review #1]

Vim screencast #59: Karabiner Elements

Evolution of the Karabiner 98k, From Prewar to Kriegsmodell

Social recommendations and mentions

We have tracked the following product recommendations or mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you see what people think about Karabiner and what they use it for.
  • Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2025)
    Hey! These kinds of keyboard related things are well solved by Karabiner elements: https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/ There you can map (whatever key) to (whatever other key). E.g. I have right command mapped to F20, available to all other apps . - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • Ergonomic Mac Keyboard Setup
    I use Karabiner as the driver for keyboard customizations. Karabiner intercepts hardware keystrokes and sends keystrokes to the computer allowing me to configure Karabiner to have a flexible setup and map key(s) presses to other keys(s) or commands. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Recommended Software for Mac that You cannot Miss
    This software is free and can be downloaded from the official website; itโ€™s also open-source, so you can find it on GitHub Releases. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?
    Besides the usual Firefox/Chrome, Spotify, etc I use the following: - Karabiner-Elements for key remapping, specifically, for making caps lock into ctrl/esc. I don't know of anything else that does this job. Everyone who remaps keys seems to use this. - Kitty as my terminal of choice. I spend most of my time logged in remotely to a server via ssh where I attach to a tmux session. Kitty was easy enough to... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Ask HN: What macOS apps/programs do you use daily and recommend?
    If I had to recommend 1 app/script that I use daily: https://github.com/banga/git-split-diffs) to disable things like "Apple + Q" -> nothing worse than going to close a single tab and then your whole app quits. Also able to re-map caps-lock into escape, ect `iterm2` for terminal (colored tabs are great; albeit I disable the hell out of many of the options like "clickable urls" ect) for cli, I try to gnu... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Ask HN: What if we wrote HTML with [brackets][/brackets]?
    I have been using Karabiner elements (https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org), they allow keyboard customization, I have switched the colon and semicolon key, by default without pressing shift, the key will output colon (:) , I find this useful as I type lot of colon daily. Maybe you can use this software to set "<" and ">" to be the default text output without using Shift. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Remote desktop from Windows to Mac, native keys and function
    In the settings of chrome remote desktop there is an option to not send modifier keys etc to the host system. I've also heard of https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • DOS_deck: Play DOS games in the browser with full controller support
    Possible karbiner but I've never looked into doing specifically that, so I may be wrong https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/. - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • Always paste without formatting on macOS
    Remap with Karabiner (https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/). I personally mapped right_command + v to it, but it's capable of a straight out remap. - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
  • A collection of useful Mac Apps
    Karabiner-Elements - Price: Free Powerful and stable keyboard customizer for macOS. Source: about 2 years ago
  • I protest the medicalschool opinion that "Anki is garbage as an app" and present 20 interesting Game Anki Free add-ons!
    PC via JoyToKey(win), karabiner(Mac), or add-on(Contanki), etc. Smartphone app can be connected via bluetooth to set the buttons. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Vim remaps for mac users
    You could try remapping the keyboard with https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/. Source: about 2 years ago
  • IT Pro Tuesday #257 - IAS/NPS Log Analysis, Web Dev Tutorials, FreeBSD Builder & More
    Karabiner-Elements is a keyboard customizer for MacOS that allows you to adjust things to your liking, plus includes cool features for creating device-specific modifications that alter the behavior of function keys and setting up complex modification rules. MyUshanka appreciates that it can "map keyboard shortcuts, including remapping existing ones.". Source: over 2 years ago
  • Write code to reassign keys on Mac?
    I'd definitely recommend checking out Karabiner-Elements. Been using it for years and it works very well. You have the option to do simple modifications quickly or code your own complex changes. Https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Apple removing keyboard brightness keys is one of the worst decisions they've made, ever.
    I agree, I use this to set the function keys back like theyโ€™re supposed to: https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/. Source: over 2 years ago
  • [Serious] I don't get why people like Mac and I feel like I'm missing out
    You can do very sophisticated key remapping with the FOSS tool karabiner elements, and it has a good GUI. https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Mapping Caps-Lock to Esc is life changing
    For the mac folks I discovered Karabiner-Elements that allows pretty complex key mappings, haven't given it a go but bit meaning to try it out. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Keyboard Maestro vs Alfred (Powerpack) vs Raycast
    First, I am still not used to hitting two distant combination keys, though I can of course use Karabiner-Elements to modify them, but still, I would expect when you hit escape you will not see the search window anymore.. Source: over 2 years ago
  • I got a Macbook and I realized... I am old people.
    If you want to remap Mac to be more like Windows, or are using a Windows keyboard on a Mac โ€ฆ Iโ€™ve found this to be of some utility. Source: over 2 years ago
  • [HELP] External keyboard with incorrect key mapping
    There's maybe a workaround, and that's using Karabiner-Elements. You can remap keys, per keyboard: Https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Is there any hope for my tab key?
    Can you remap the tab key to the cap lock. Karabiner Elements may help. Source: over 2 years ago

Do you know an article comparing Karabiner to other products?
Suggest a link to a post with product alternatives.

Suggest an article

Karabiner discussion

Log in or Post with

Is Karabiner good? This is an informative page that will help you find out. Moreover, you can review and discuss Karabiner here. The primary details have not been verified within the last quarter, and they might be outdated. If you think we are missing something, please use the means on this page to comment or suggest changes. All reviews and comments are highly encouranged and appreciated as they help everyone in the community to make an informed choice. Please always be kind and objective when evaluating a product and sharing your opinion.