MacOS – keyboard no longer repeats keys when held down

keyboardmacos

I just wanted to make some input where I press a key and the auto-repeat function engages so I don't have to press the 0 key many times to make a long number.

10000000000000000000000000000

This has always worked without fail in the past, but it's not something I do often and I'm not sure where to look next to figure out what might be preventing this.

keyboard - system preferences

I've toggled the sliders to change the delay for key repeat, but the only thing I can hang my hat on is that perhaps Lion disables this with the new feature where you hold down some keys (like the vowels, but also some consonants) to get alternate accented characters.

s turns into ß or ś or š and so on….

Am I missing an obvious setting, or is this something that has moved to a hidden setting or is simply a bug that these controls are still around since key repeat is now deprecated?

Comments welcome if anyone doesn't have an answer, but can provide specifics where this does work for them. I've checked two Macs so I'm guessing it's not related to keyboard type or connection method.

Best Answer

The accented character selection when a key is held was one of the tiny things that changed in Lion. To disable it, run this in the Terminal:

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

I will admit, though, it is strange that there's a setting in System Preferences that only affects behavior accessed through a defaults write command.