MacBook – Move Escape key on Touch Bar

macbook protouch-bar

I keep accidentally hitting the Escape key when I'm typing. I'd like to move to more towards the center of the Touch Bar, or require a double-click to activate it. Is this possible?

Best Answer

There’s no native way to move (or adjust the sensitivity of) the escape key on the Touch Bar.

Some potential solutions:

  1. Upgrade to a new MacBook with a physical ESC key
  2. Use Better Touch Tool to temporarily hide your entire Touch Bar (solutions below)
  3. Use an external keyboard

Using BTT to hide the Touchbar

This solution was posed in a BTT GitHub issue:

  1. Uncheck "Show MacOS Control Strip" and "Show Escape Button" in general touchbar settings.
  2. Create a button with no action and put a bunch of blank spaces in the name and make the button black (this moves the button you'll create in the following step over to the right so your pinky won't hit it).
  3. Create a "Toggle BTT Touchbar" button with "Toggle BetterTouchTool Touchbar" as its action. This let's you get the standard touchbar back if/when you need it.

This solution is from the Apple discussion board:

Click "TouchBar" Click "General Touch Bar Settings" Check "Enable Touch Bar Support" Uncheck "Show macOS Control Strip" Check Show "BTT icon in Control Strip" All Other items are unchecked Click Close 14  Click "+ TouchBar Button" Give the button a Name...I chose "Unhide the Touch Bar with Satan Spawn ESC key" For "Predefined Action:" choose "Toggle BTT Touch Bar”  Click "Advanced Configuration" for the button and choose where you want it to appear...I chose the right side for "Item Placement..."  Now my Touch Bar looks like this:  With nothing else on the Touch Bar:
 This Touch Bar persists across all apps. If I tap the button, the regular Touch Bar returns

NOTE: You may also need to hide the BTT icon in settings, as it will replace the ESC key when the Touch Bar is empty.

Related Question