Make Mac Switch Keyboard Language Automatically Per App

If you type in two languages, you know the failure mode: switch to Greek for a chat window, flip back to your document, and type half a sentence of the wrong alphabet before noticing. macOS has a fix most bilingual typists never find — a single checkbox that makes each document remember its own keyboard language and switch the moment you click back into it.

Turn on automatic switching

1. Open System Settings → Keyboard.
2. In the Text Input section, click Edit… next to Input Sources.
3. Turn on Automatically switch to a document's input source.
4. Click Done. The path and toggle are identical on macOS 13 Ventura, 14 Sonoma, and 15 Sequoia.

You need at least two input sources in the list for the toggle to matter — if you haven't added your second language yet, do that first with the + button in the same pane. The setting takes effect immediately; there's nothing to restart, and unticking the same box turns the behavior off just as instantly.

What it actually does

With the box ticked, macOS tags each document or text window with the input source you last used in it. Click back into that window and the layout snaps back automatically — no Ctrl+Space, no glance at the menu bar flag. In practice:

• Your English report stays English while the Telegram window next to it stays Russian, indefinitely.
• The memory is per document, not just per app — two TextEdit windows can hold two different languages, and each restores its own.
• New windows start in whatever source is currently active, then develop their own memory the first time you switch inside them.
• It layers cleanly on top of manual switching — Ctrl+Space still works everywhere; the automation just handles the switches you'd otherwise forget.

Watch the input menu in the menu bar while you click between windows and you can see the flag flip in real time — worth keeping visible while you get used to the behavior (enable it under Show Input menu in menu bar in the same settings pane).

When it fights you

The feature has one sharp edge: it records every manual switch. Flip a document to your second language to type one word, and that document is now remembered as a second-language document — return to it tomorrow and the wrong layout greets you. The fix is simply to switch back before leaving the window, and the memory updates. A few other quirks worth knowing:

• Apps with unusual text systems (some cross-platform editors, terminal emulators) may not report documents distinctly, so the memory works app-wide rather than per window there.
• The setting doesn't sync between Macs — set it on each machine.
• If switching ever feels haunted — layouts changing when you didn't ask — this checkbox is almost always the ghost. Untick it and input source changes become fully manual again; that's the whole undo.

Pair it with a visible indicator

Automatic switching works best when you can verify it at a glance. Keep the input menu visible in the menu bar, and consider enabling the Caps Lock language-switch option (Use the Caps Lock key to switch to and from ABC, in the same Edit… sheet) if your pair of languages is Latin + non-Latin — press once to toggle, with the light confirming the state. Between the automatic memory and a one-key manual override, wrong-alphabet typos mostly disappear.

Choose your manual shortcut too

Even with automatic switching on, you'll still flip sources by hand a dozen times a day. Make sure that motion is comfortable: pick the right input-switching shortcut — Ctrl+Space, the Globe key, or Caps Lock.