Mac – Remap Copy and Paste Shortcuts

keyboardkeyboard shortcutsmacwindows

I use Windows at work and a Mac at home. One of the biggest issues is the difference between the copy paste shortcuts on Windows vs the Mac i.e. Ctrl + C & Ctrl + V on Windows and on the Mac its Command + C and Command + V. Invariably its hard because of learnt motor skills where my hand always shapes itself to the Windows Ctrl + C configuration(I have been using Windows longer)

I would like to remap the Copy and Paste to the Fn + C and Fn + V on the Mac. Why? Because the Fn key is actually the key that corresponds to where the Ctrl key is on Windows keyboards and since its the last edge key its easy to find. I have tried Double Command but it doesn't seem to have an option of turning Fn to the Command key.

Best Answer

I was able to get this to work by using a combination of DoubleCommand and jtbandes hint from here. First check the function key acts as control key box in Double command. Then save the file ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict with the contents 

{"^c" = "copy:";}
{"^v" = "paste:";}
{"^x" = "cut:";}

After you logout and log back in you should be able to use fn-c to copy etc. There are obvious drawbacks to this approach. You have to explicitly define every command you want to use fn for and mapping to control and then fn is really hacky. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get it to work another way. At first I thought you might be able to select both the "command key acts as control key" check box and the "fn key acts as control key" but that didn't seem to work. Ditto for changing to control with Alex's method above. I was also unable to find the modifier for assigning commands to fn, and Apple's documentation seems to indicate that it's done at a lower level than keybinding has access to. If someone knows a better way of doing this I would love to see it.

Related Question