How to Show the On-Screen Keyboard Viewer on Mac

macOS ships a floating on-screen keyboard — the Keyboard Viewer — that types when you click it and lights up as you press real keys. It hides behind the input menu, which itself is off by default. Two settings and it's on your screen.

Step 1: put the Input menu in the menu bar

1. Open System Settings → Keyboard.
2. In the Text Input section, click Edit… next to Input Sources.
3. Turn on Show Input menu in menu bar and click Done.

A small icon appears in the menu bar — a flag if you use a national layout, or a generic input symbol. (To undo later, switch the same toggle off.)

Step 2: open Keyboard Viewer

1. Click the Input menu icon.
2. Choose Show Keyboard Viewer.

A floating keyboard appears, always on top, resizable by dragging a corner — stretch it if the keys are fiddly to click. It types into whatever app has focus: click keys with the pointer and characters land at your cursor exactly as if you'd pressed them. Close it from the same menu (Hide Keyboard Viewer) or with its close button.

What it's actually good for

• Typing when the physical keyboard can't — a broken key, a dead laptop keyboard while you wait on a repair, or liquid-damage triage. Slow, but it works everywhere text goes.
• Finding symbols — hold ⌥ Option (and ⌥⇧) on your real keyboard and watch the Viewer relabel every key: that's where ©, €, ≈ and friends live on your layout. Dead keys (accent builders like ⌥e) highlight in orange.
• Verifying a suspect key — press the real key; if the on-screen key doesn't light, macOS never received it and the problem is hardware (or a remapping utility eating it).
• Learning an unfamiliar layout — switch input sources and the Viewer redraws to match, which makes it a live cheat-sheet for a new language layout.

Need a full-time on-screen keyboard? Use the Accessibility Keyboard

Keyboard Viewer is a utility; for actually working by pointer all day, macOS has a bigger tool:

1. Open System Settings → Accessibility → Keyboard.
2. Turn on Accessibility Keyboard.

It adds typing suggestions, panel customization, and dwell support (typing by hovering, for switch and head-pointer users). Turn it off in the same place — note that closing the Accessibility Keyboard's window with its close button offers to turn the feature off too.

The Input menu's other tool: Character Viewer

Right next to Show Keyboard Viewer in the same menu sits Show Emoji & Symbols — the Character Viewer, and the better tool when your goal is a specific character rather than a whole keyboard. It covers emoji plus every Unicode block (arrows, math symbols, dingbats, currency signs), with search and a favorites list; double-click any character to insert it at the cursor. Its shortcut is worth more than the menu: press fn E (or ⌃⌘Space) in any text field. Between the two, the division of labor is clean — Keyboard Viewer answers "which key makes this character on my layout," Character Viewer answers "give me this character, whatever key it's on."

Small usability notes: the Viewer floats above full-screen apps too, you can park it on a second display to keep your workspace clear, and it always mirrors the currently selected input source — if its labels look wrong, check the Input menu, because you're probably typing in a layout you didn't mean to switch to.

Key presses going missing?

If you opened the Viewer to test a flaky key and it really isn't registering, work through the fixes for a Mac keyboard that isn't working before booking a repair — settings cause more "broken" keys than hardware does.