macOS has the accent keys feature, which makes it easier for users to add alphabets accent marks by pressing and holding an alphabet key. While this is useful for people who use them, it is also an inconvenience for users who don’t as because of accent keys you cannot enter letters repeatedly by holding down an alphabet button. If you want to change this behavior of your Mac and disable accent keys, then we have got your covered. To do so all you need to do is enter a Terminal command and reboot your computer.
Disable macOS Accent Keys and Enable Key Repeat
Important: Before following the steps below make sure you have configured the key repeat settings correctly as detailed here.
Step 1: On your Mac launch the Terminal application. Make sure you have administrative privileges to your computer. If not, then sign in with an admin account.
Step 2: Once Terminal is launched copy and paste the following command and hit the ‘Return’ key.
defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false
Step 3: Once the command has been entered reboot your Mac.
After the reboot when you press and hold any alphabet key from your keyboard the key will be entered repeatedly instead of you seeing the accent menu. The speed of key repeat will depend on how you have set it up from Keyboard settings.
Timothy Reavis on January 14, 2015
One thing I’ve always liked about Macs is their secondary keys, where holding down a letter key will display variations of that letter, like holding down “u” to get “ü.” This comes in handy when spelling non-English words, but if that’s not something you ever do, Apple’s substitution of special characters for the traditional key repeats of Windows computers can be an unneeded – and perhaps unwanted – feature.
The good news is that there’s a simple way to take control and change the behavior of long key presses to accommodate your needs. This not only works with letters, but number keys as well.
Enable key repeat on Mac
1) Open Terminal from Spotlight or by locating it in the Applications folder.
2) Enter the following command into Terminal and press enter:
3) Restart any open applications in which you want this setting to activate. You should now be able to hold down a key and have it repeat its character indefinitely.
4) If you want to speed up the rate of key repeats or decrease the delay before a held key starts repeating, System Preferences has these options filed under the Keyboard header. Simply adjust these sliders to suit your taste.
Reverting back: If you don’t like the results or want to get back the alternate characters for whatever reason, doing so is as simple as following the above steps but changing the latter part of the command from “false” to “true”. This simply means substituting the following command for the one in step 2:
That’s all it takes. Whether you like key repeats or simply dislike alternate characters, toggling between these settings is a breeze.
For more, take a look at our keyboard shortcuts section for quicker ways to accomplish tasks on your Mac. And if you have tips like this you’d like to share, leave a comment or hit us up on Twitter!
On a Windows machine, pressing and holding a keyboard key results in the character being repeated. For example, if I press and hold q for a few seconds, I end up with the following:
Similarly, I can press and hold the Backspace key to delete multiple characters.
On a Mac pressing and holding a key for several seconds results in the character being typed only once. To type it repeatedly, it is necessary to physically press it multiple times.
I’m unclear about whether that is a bug or a supposed-feature, but I am interested in replicating this functionality on a Mac.
A couple of notes and additional ideas to supplement the selected answer:
The speed of repetition of characters (how many characters are added per second when a key is held down) can be controlled by adjusting the “Key Repeat” option under System Preferences => Keyboard (Keyboard tab). However, if the fastest speed is not fast enough (it wasn’t for me), you can further adjust this setting by opening Terminal and typing:
Where 0 indicates the minimum speed (smaller is faster). The fastest that can be set by the system preferences is 2 , so the other two remaning, faster options are 1 (fast) and 0 (fastest).
The amount of time it takes for key repetition to begin can also be set by adjusting the “Delay Until Repeat” option under System Preferences => Keyboard (Keyboard tab). Again, if this is still too slow for you (as it was for me), you can set an even faster speed by opening Terminal and typing:
Where 4 , again, can be adjusted (smaller is faster). I’d highly recommend you do not set this option under 4 , though, because that would just be impossibly fast (touching a key for a mere split second would type about 10 repeating characters). I ended up setting mine to 7 , which might still be too fast for me.
