MacDotes — Mac keyboard utility
Alt beside the space bar
On Windows, Alt sits beside the space bar. On a Mac that key is Command. MacDotes swaps the two while your game is in front, and puts them straight back when you leave.
Not on sale yet. MacDotes 1.0 is finished and in review preparation.
The problem
One key, in the wrong place
If your muscle memory was built on a PC, every habit lands one key off. Option — the key macOS calls Alt — is one position further out than the key your thumb expects.
That is the entire change. Command and Option trade places while the game is frontmost, and trade back the moment it is not.
The interface
A menu bar icon is the whole interface
No Dock icon and no windows in your way. The menu says what is applied right now and what will be restored; the settings window holds the mapping, the detection rules, and a live log of every change.
The rules
What it does, and what it refuses to do
Focus-driven
The swap follows which app is in front, not which app is running. Alt-tab to a browser and Command-C is Command-C again.
One swap, nothing else
Only Command and Option change places. No other key is touched, and no other mapping ships.
Automatic restore
Quitting MacDotes, switching it off, or moving to another app all put your keyboard back immediately.
Crash-safe
Before it changes anything it records what it owes you, so a crash or a forced logout is undone on the next launch. Your keyboard is never left swapped.
No permissions to grant
No Accessibility prompt, no Input Monitoring prompt. MacDotes changes the mapping between two modifiers — it never sees a key you press.
No account, no network
There is no networking code in the binary at all, so there is nothing that can contact a server. Nothing is collected.
Requires macOS 14.0 or later. Universal — Apple silicon and Intel.