Best keystroke visualizer for Mac: 6 options, compared honestly
If you want to show the keys you press in a Mac screen recording and pay nothing, start with KeyCastr: it’s free, open source, and has been around since 2009. If your viewers need more than a row of key symbols, such as a full keyboard on screen or a name for each shortcut, look at Keylume and Typebar. And if all you need is to show clicks, macOS can already do that, with no app at all.
Below are six options, with what each is good at, where it falls short, and what it costs. Every fact about another app comes from its own website or store page, checked on 28 October 2026. We make Typebar, so read its section with that in mind; it gets the same treatment as the rest, limits included.
What to look for in a keystroke visualizer
A keystroke visualizer draws the keys you press on screen, so they end up in your recording or your screen share. They differ in more ways than looks:
- Which keys it shows. Most let you choose between every key and only shortcuts (keys pressed with Command, Option or Control). Shortcuts only is usually right for tutorials, because a stream of typed letters is noise.
- Whether it names the shortcut. “⇧⌘4” tells a viewer what to press. “⇧⌘4 Screenshot Selection” also tells them what it did. Few visualizers do the second part.
- Clicks. In a tutorial, a right click or a Command-click looks like any other click unless something on screen says so.
- Privacy. A key display sees everything you type. Check what it does in password fields, and whether you can pause it before you type something private on camera. Is a keystroke display safe? goes into this.
- Showing up only while you record. An overlay that appears when a recording starts and hides when it stops is one less thing to forget.
- Price, and your macOS version. Some of these need a recent macOS. Check before you buy.
One thing is true of all of them: the overlay is a window. If you capture the whole screen, or an area that includes the overlay, the keys are in the video. If your recorder or call shares a single app’s window, they aren’t.
The options
1. macOS itself: Show Mouse Clicks and the Accessibility Keyboard
Good at: clicks, for nothing. Press Command-Shift-5 (⇧⌘5), pick Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion, open Options and choose Show Mouse Clicks. Apple’s guide describes this as showing “the mouse pointer or clicks” in a recording, and every click then draws a circle around the pointer. QuickTime Player’s File > New Screen Recording opens the same toolbar. macOS also has an on-screen keyboard, the Accessibility Keyboard, which you turn on in System Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard.
Falls short: keystrokes. Neither recorder shows the keys you press, in any form. The Accessibility Keyboard is, in Apple’s words, “an onscreen keyboard that lets you use your Mac without a physical keyboard”. It’s built for typing without a keyboard, not for showing an audience what you pressed, so it names no shortcuts and doesn’t appear when you start recording. How to show mouse clicks in a screen recording on a Mac has the full steps.
Price: free, part of macOS.
2. KeyCastr
Good at: being the free default. KeyCastr is free and open source under the BSD-3-Clause license, and its page says it “has been freely available for the Mac since 2009”. It shows command keys, all modified keys, or every keystroke, and it can show mouse clicks too. It comes with visualizer styles (Default and Svelte, with a Minimal one in recent releases), and developers can write their own. You can install it with brew install --cask keycastr.
Falls short: it shows keys, not what they do. Its page doesn’t mention an on-screen keyboard, shortcut names, or appearing by itself when a recording starts. It also doesn’t state a minimum macOS version, so check its releases page if your Mac is older.
Price: free.
3. Keyviz
Good at: style, for free. Keyviz is free and open source (GPL-3.0) and, per its site, “Available for Windows and macOS”, which helps if you record on both. It shows keys and modifier combinations, mouse clicks and scroll wheel movement next to the pointer, and it lets you style the keycaps (colors, size, border, icons), filter which keys appear, keep a short trail of recent keys, and pick entry and exit animations. Its site says keystrokes are processed on your computer and not sent anywhere.
Falls short: the current release is labeled a beta (2.1.1-beta, released 1 April 2026), and its site lists no minimum macOS version. Captions for key combinations are part of the paid Pro tier, not the free app. Like KeyCastr’s, its site doesn’t mention an on-screen keyboard.
Price: free. Pro is $9 and adds three extra animations and styles, three animated mouse indicators, and captions for key combinations. The site doesn’t say whether that’s a one-time payment.
4. Keystroke Pro
Good at: clean keycaps with little setup. Keystroke Pro, from App ahead, shows each key you press as keycaps on screen. You choose all keys or only modifier combinations, and set key shapes, colors, size, animations and how long keys stay visible. It runs from the menu bar, works across more than one display, has a keyboard shortcut and Shortcuts actions, and its listing says it stays quiet in secure password fields.
Falls short: its listing doesn’t mention mouse clicks, so plan on macOS’s Show Mouse Clicks for those. Positions are chosen from a set of places on screen. Its listing doesn’t mention an on-screen keyboard or shortcut names, and neither its site nor its listing mentions a trial.
Price: $14.99 on the Mac App Store. Requires macOS 11.5 or later.
5. Keylume
Good at: a full keyboard on screen. Keylume draws a full Apple-style keyboard that shows viewers which keys you’re pressing, adapts to layouts such as QWERTZ, AZERTY, Dvorak and Colemak, and shows the app’s shortcuts on the keys while you hold a modifier. It can appear when a screen recording starts and hide when it stops, has click to type, built-in themes with a theme editor and theme sharing, and can be driven from a URL scheme or a command-line tool.
Falls short: its page doesn’t mention showing mouse clicks, or naming each shortcut as you press it. After the trial it keeps working in a Free mode with the Pro features turned off; the page doesn’t list which features those are.
Price: a one-time license for up to 5 Macs. Its checkout listed €10 when we looked, and the page’s buy button applied a limited-time discount. A 14-day trial starts by itself, with no payment details. Requires macOS 14 Sonoma or later.
6. Typebar
Good at: showing viewers both the key and what it did. Typebar lights every key you press on an on-screen keyboard shaped like yours (MacBook, Magic Keyboard with or without a number pad, or tenkeyless, in ANSI, ISO or JIS, following your input source). Beside it, or instead of it, a pill shows what you press as keycaps and names each shortcut with its name in the app’s own menus, such as “⇧⌘4 Screenshot Selection”. Hold a modifier for a moment and the keys relabel with what they do in the app in front, with 20 hand-made packs for shortcuts menus leave out.
It also covers the rest of a recording setup: click ripples with their own shape for left, right and middle clicks, a drag trail, a cursor halo and a pointer spotlight. It can show itself only while your screen is recorded or shared. Nothing typed shows in password fields or while 1Password, Bitwarden, Keychain Access or Passwords is in front, and Hide letters shows letters as dots while shortcuts still show. There are 40 themes, optional typing sounds (off until you turn them on), and Recording, Presenting and Learning profiles.
Falls short: it isn’t free in any form. After the 24-hour trial it does nothing until you buy it or enter a license key, so if you want a key display you never pay for, KeyCastr or Keyviz is the answer. It needs macOS 14 Sonoma or later, so older Macs are out. It’s a Mac app only. And it has more settings than a one-line key display; if all you want is a row of keys in the corner, that’s more than you need.
Price: $9 once, for up to 5 Macs, free for 24 hours with everything on. Requires macOS 14 or later, on Apple silicon or Intel.
Side by side
| Price | Free option | On-screen keyboard | Names shortcuts | Shows clicks | Needs | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| macOS (Show Mouse Clicks) | Free | Yes | Accessibility Keyboard, not for audiences | No | Yes, a circle | Nothing to install |
| KeyCastr | Free, open source | Yes | Not mentioned | Not mentioned | Yes | Not stated |
| Keyviz | Free; Pro $9 | Yes | Not mentioned | Captions in Pro | Yes, plus scroll | Not stated |
| Keystroke Pro | $14.99 | No | Not mentioned | Not mentioned | Not mentioned | macOS 11.5 |
| Keylume | €10 at checkout, one-time | Free mode after 14 days | Yes | Not mentioned | Not mentioned | macOS 14 |
| Typebar | $9 once | 24-hour trial only | Yes | Yes | Yes, per button | macOS 14 |
“Not mentioned” means exactly that: the app’s own page, as checked on 28 October 2026, doesn’t say it does this.
Which one to pick
- You want it free, and keys are enough: KeyCastr. Set it to command keys only and your shortcuts are in your next recording.
- You want free, with more style, or you record on Windows too: Keyviz, knowing it’s a beta.
- You want polished keycaps and don’t need clicks or a keyboard: Keystroke Pro, if your Mac runs macOS 11.5 or later.
- You want a full keyboard on screen and a free mode after the trial: Keylume.
- Your viewers are learning an app, and need to see where each key is and what each shortcut did: Typebar, for its keyboard plus the named shortcuts in the pill, with clicks shown too. What to look for in a keystroke visualizer for Mac helps if you’re still deciding between a board and a line of keys.
- You only need to show clicks: nothing to install. Turn on Show Mouse Clicks in the Command-Shift-5 toolbar.
Whatever you choose, run one at a time. Two overlays drawing keys into the same recording is the most common mess, and quitting one before you record avoids it.
Questions
Does macOS have a keystroke visualizer built in?
No. The Screenshot toolbar can show clicks in a recording, and the Accessibility Keyboard puts a keyboard on screen, but neither shows an audience the keys you press. For that you need an app.
Is KeyCastr still the best free option?
For most people, yes. It’s free, open source, and does the core job well: command keys, modified keys or everything, plus clicks. Keyviz is the free alternative to try if you want more styling and are fine with a beta.
Will the keys show if I share only one window in a call?
Usually not. A keystroke display is its own window, so it appears when you share or record the whole screen, or an area that includes it, and not when the app shares a single other window. That’s true of every app on this list.
Which of these can show what a shortcut does, not only the keys?
Typebar names each shortcut as you press it, using the names in the app’s own menus. Keyviz’s paid Pro tier adds captions for key combinations. Keylume shows an app’s shortcuts on its keyboard while you hold a modifier, and Typebar does that too. The other pages don’t mention it.