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Turn On Key Repeat For MacOS Text Editors]

November 11, 2020 by Areg Sarkissian

By default for when you press and hold a key on MacOS, the key does not repeat.

To fix this for various text editors use the commands specified below for your editors.

Turn on key repeat commands for individual editors

In the terminal command line type the command for the applications you need out of the ones I use.

#the following 3 commands are for the 3 editors that I use
defaults write com.microsoft.VSCode ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

defaults write com.jetbrains.PhpStorm ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

defaults write com.sublimetext.3 ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

#turn on keyrepeat for Gmail
defaults write com.google.chrome ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

#turn on for the MacOS default editor app
defaults write com.apple.TextEdit ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

If the command for your editor does not seem to work, try removing the global defaults

defaults delete -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled

Turn on key repeat commands globally for all apps

You may want to turn on key repeat globally for all apps using the command below

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false