In this guide, we will show you the steps to repeat a key in Mac while holding it down. For the unaware, if you want to repeat a key press in Mac, then simply long pressing it will not work for every key. For example, if you want to type in the alphabet ‘g’ five times, then long pressing on it wouldn’t do the job. Rather, you will have to individually press the ‘g’ key 5 times.
On the other hand, this functionality works well and good with all the punctuation keys (period, comma, exclamation mark, etc), Space, and Delete. Say if you want to delete five letters, then just long-press the Delete key and it will do the job. But why is there a conflicting behavior between the alphabet and the function keys? Well, this is because some of the alphabet keys behold a shortcut for special characters that could be invoked on long press. You could check the same by long pressing the a, n, or e keys.
While not every alphabet has this shortcut, but to make it uniform throughout, Mac has completely removed the ability to repeat a key while holding it down from all the alphabet keys. Fortunately, we did manage to find a workaround through which you could easily bring back this feature. So without further ado, let’s check it out.
How to repeat a key in Mac while holding it down?
Since I usually maintain a safe distance from third-party apps, I will show you the steps to carry out this task by executing a command in the built-in Terminal window. But before implementing this fix, keep in mind that the command will disable the ability to long press and access special characters from keys such as a. e, and n. So if that’s well and good, then let’s get started.
- Open Launchpad, go to Others, and launch Terminal.
- Now execute the below command in the Terminal window:
defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false
- Finally, restart your Mac and the change will be implemented.
That’s it. These were the steps to repeat a key in Mac while holding it down. If you have any queries concerning the aforementioned steps, do let us know in the comments. We will get back to you with a solution at the earliest.
