How to make your Mac's keyboard sound mechanical

Updated October 22, 2026

Install an app that plays a mechanical keyboard sound for every key you press, allow it under Input Monitoring, and pick a sound. It works with the MacBook's own keyboard and with any external one, in every app. Here are the steps with Teclo.

1. Try the sounds first

Every Teclo sound pack can be played on this site: press keys on your own keyboard and hear it before you install anything.

2. Install Teclo

1. Download Teclo and open Teclo.dmg from your Downloads.
2. Drag Teclo into Applications and open it. It lives in the menu bar, as a keycap icon, with no Dock icon.

Teclo needs macOS 13 or later. The first 7 days are free, with nothing locked.

3. Allow Input Monitoring

A Mac app can only hear keys pressed in other apps once you allow it under Input Monitoring.

1. Teclo’s window opens with a note at the top: “Teclo can’t hear your keys yet”. Click Continue.
2. macOS shows its own prompt. Choose the button that opens System Settings.
3. Under Privacy & Security, Input Monitoring, switch Teclo on.
4. Quit Teclo and open it again.

What this permission allows, and what Teclo does with it, is on is a keyboard sound app safe?.

4. Pick a sound

Click the keycap icon in the menu bar and pick a pack. Some starting points:

• A soft, everyday mechanical board: Butter, the pack Teclo opens with.
• Deep and thocky: Boulder.
• Bright and clicky: Cricket or Knuckle.
• Quiet: Muffle.
• A typewriter: Typewriter.

Not sure what you like? Thock, clack and creamy explains the words.

5. Adjust it

• The volume slider at the bottom left of the window is Teclo’s own, separate from your Mac’s.
• Under Options, “Silence modifier keys” mutes Shift, Control, Option and Command, and “Launch at login” starts Teclo with your Mac.
• Mouse clicks, scrolling and trackpad gestures can make sounds too; see click, scroll and trackpad sounds.

If something doesn’t work, the support page has the fixes.