MacOS – How to make the Windows keyboard shortcuts work on a Mac, exactly how they do on Windows

keyboardmacosshortcut

I've yet to find a guide that is both (a) complete, and (b) compatible with recent macOS releases. I have a Windows keyboard that I'd like to set up on my Mac to work with the same shortcuts. Some things I've tried include setting Application Shortcuts, and modifying key actions in the keyboard settings (i.e., setting ⌘ to take the action ⌥) — these sort of work, but still leave me without several shortcuts.

Shortcuts I'm specifically hoping to get on my Mac:

- ctrl + c : copy
- ctrl + v : paste
- ctrl + x : cut
- ctrl + a : select all
- ctrl + s : save
- ctrl + shift + s : save all
- end : end of line
- home : front of line
- ctrl + end : end of document
- ctrl + home : front of document

I know there are tons more that I'd like, but I assume if I can get the Ctrl, Shift, End, and Home keys working, then the rest of my normal keyboard shortcuts will kind of fall into place from there.

So basically, I'm looking for a way to get my Windows keyboard to act like a Windows keyboard, on a Mac. Is this possible?

Best Answer

Install https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/
Find PC-style shortcuts complex_modifications rules here https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/complex_modifications/?q=%20PC-Style%20Shortcuts
Click import.
Enable all rules that you need in Karabiner-Elements app.

Related Solutions

Windows – Make Mac OS X “Option-Arrow” work like Windows “Ctrl-Arrow”

Here's how you can get ⌃ Control+arrow keys to work like you describe. Copy the following property list into ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict (you can create the directory if it doesn't already exist):

{
    "^\UF703" = ("moveWordForward:", "moveWordForward:", "moveWordBackward:");
    "^$\UF703" = ("moveWordForwardAndModifySelection:", "moveWordForwardAndModifySelection:", "moveWordBackwardAndModifySelection:");
}

This will set up ⌃ Control+arrow to navigate to the beginning of the next word (by using OS X's normal navigation three times: to the end of the current word, end of the next word, then back to the beginning of the next word). I also included a version that works with ⇧ Shift so you can select text as you go.

Caveat: this will only work in Cocoa apps, but I think the normal ⌥ Option+arrow navigation does too. Also, make sure to relaunch your apps!

Selecting a whole line of text, including the newline

What if you want to select 78 here (after having pressed ⇧↑)?

Or if you want to select both 12 and 78, on Windows you couldn't press shift+home and shift+end.

Methods like moveToEndOfLineAndModifySelection: are unanchored in most applications, which means that they always extend selections. They are actually anchored in Xcode, TextMate, Sublime Text, and BBEdit, but I don't know any way to change the default behavior.

If you just want to make selecting and deleting lines easier, you can create ~/Library/KeyBindings/ and save a property list like this as DefaultKeyBinding.dict:

{
    "~l" = selectParagraph:;
    "~z" = (selectParagraph:, deleteBackward:);
    "~x" = (selectParagraph:, cut:);
    "~c" = (selectParagraph:, copy:);
}

After reopening applications, ⌥L should select a line. See http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/site/cocoa-text.html and http://lri.me/keybindings.html for more information.

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