KeyslamKeyboard sound app for Mac Hit harder.
Hear harder.
Each pack is cut from a real recording into four bands of real strikes, soft to slam. On MacBooks with the motion sensor, Keyslam picks from them on every keystroke, so a light tap stays light and a hard hit lands hard.
Free 7-day trial, no account or card · $3.99 once · macOS 13 Ventura or later, Apple silicon or Intel
Short answer: Keyslam is a keyboard sound app for Mac. It plays real recordings of 13 keyboards and 2 typewriters on every key you press, in any app, so you get mechanical keyboard sounds on your Mac without changing keyboards. On Apple silicon MacBooks with the motion sensor, it feels how hard each key lands and plays a softer or harder real strike to match. It costs $3.99 once after a 7-day free trial, makes no network connections, and is available to download.
Try it here
Pick a board. Then type.
These are the same 15 recordings the Mac app plays, cut into single keystrokes. Pick a strength, or leave it on Natural to hear normal typing.
Tap the key, or type
MX Blue
Clicky · Cherry MX Blue switches: a crisp click on every press.
Recorded by EricsSoundschmiede · 46 takes ↗Fifteen real boards
CC0 recordingsOn a MacBook the app reads how hard you actually hit. Here, pick a strength or let it vary.
Want a score? Take the typing test with sound: 15, 30 or 60 seconds on any of these boards.
Force sensing
Your MacBook already feels how hard you type.
MacBooks with an M1 Pro, M1 Max, M2 or later chip have a motion sensor inside the case. Keyslam reads it about 800 times a second and compares each keystroke's jolt with how you usually type. Then it picks real strikes from that board's soft, medium, hard and slam bands and crossfades between the two closest.
The sound starts as soon as the key goes down, usually at your typical strength, and settles on the measured strength within about 16 ms. You hear one keystroke, not two. Read how these keyboard sounds that react to how hard you type are measured.
1.0× a typical keystroke · Medium 100%
Drag Impact and press Strike. The curves show how much of each band you hear at that force.
The recordings
Real strikes, sorted soft to slam
Every pack starts as one real typing recording, released as CC0 on Freesound; the two typewriters add a recorded bell for Return. Keyslam's slicer finds each strike and drops clipped or overlapping hits. On the keyboards it also pairs each strike with its key-up and keeps Space, Return and Delete apart (they ring longer). Then it sorts the strikes by natural loudness into four bands.
| Band | Strikes it takes from the recording | Level target vs. medium | Where it sits on a MacBook |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soft | 8th to 30th percentile | 0.55× | about 0.4× your usual keystroke |
| Medium | 38th to 62nd percentile | 1× (the reference) | your usual keystroke |
| Hard | 70th to 88th percentile | 1.45× | about 2.2× |
| Slam | 92nd to 100th percentile, the hardest ~8% | 2× | about 4× and up |
Slam isn't a separate recording. It's the hardest ~8% of strikes from someone typing normally. Strikes that fall between two bands are skipped, so neighboring bands sound clearly different. Each band is then nudged toward its own level target, and every pack is matched to the same loudness (-28 LUFS), so switching boards doesn't jump in volume.
MX Brown
MX Red
MX Black
Gateron Red
Topre
Leopold
WhiteFox
Rainy 75
Unicomp
Model F
Vintage Technics
Laptop
Selectric
OlivettiWorks on any Mac with macOS 13 or later
Feels your force
MacBook Pro with M1 Pro or M1 Max and later, and MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with M2 and later. These have the motion sensor. Tested on an M5 Pro MacBook Pro; the other models are based on public hardware information.
Plays at the strength you pick
Intel Macs, iMac, Mac mini, Mac Studio, Mac Pro, the M1 MacBook Air and the 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro. Every sound works; choose Soft, Medium, Hard or Slam in the menu bar.
External keyboards
Keys on an external keyboard play sounds too. The sensor feels the MacBook's own case, so when it feels no jolt, as with a separate keyboard, the key plays at your usual strength.
Details: which MacBooks have the motion sensor, what the MacBook typing sound app does on each Air and Pro, and keyboard sounds on Intel Macs and desktops.
Keyslam next to Haptyk, TapNoise and Klack
| App | Price (US) | Reacts to typing force | Where you get it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keyslam | $3.99 once, lifetime | Yes, with the MacBook motion sensor | Direct download |
| Haptyk | $8 one-time | Yes, reads the MacBook accelerometer | Direct download |
| TapNoise | $14.99 for 1 Mac ($5.99 launch price when checked) | Volume follows an estimate of typing movement; its blog says it isn't a force sensor | Direct download |
| Klack | $4.99 on the Mac App Store | Not advertised | Mac App Store, or direct from tryklack.com |
| Mechvibes | Free (open source) | Not advertised | Direct download or GitHub |
Prices and features from each app's own site or Mac App Store page, checked . Looking for the best keyboard sound app for Mac? All the apps we checked are compared there, with sources.
Haptyk also reads the MacBook motion sensor, and its trial runs 3 days; Keyslam's runs 7 (more in Keyslam as a Haptyk alternative). If you'd rather buy through the Mac App Store, Klack is $4.99 there; the Klack alternative page sets out how the two differ. If you need it free and open source, Mechvibes or KeyEcho may suit you better; see free keyboard sound apps for Mac.
Keyslam is sold directly, not on the Mac App Store. None of the 42 Mac App Store keyboard-sound apps we checked offers force sensing.
Privacy
An app with no network connections, no analytics and no account.
Hears keys, not words
Input Monitoring tells Keyslam which key went down. It never stores or sends what you type, and macOS keeps password fields hidden from all apps.
Checks your license offline
Your key is Ed25519-signed and verified on your Mac. The app never contacts a server, not even to check the license.
Trial date in your Keychain
The trial start date and your license live in your Mac's Keychain. There's no account to make.
Buy in your browser
Checkout runs on Stripe's page in your browser. The app only opens the link.
Read the privacy policy or what Input Monitoring lets an app see.
Small, native and light on your Mac
About 16 MB
That's the whole app, all 15 packs included. Native Swift, no Electron.
A 5 ms audio buffer
A C audio core holds every take in memory with an audio buffer of about 5 ms, so a key press only starts a sound.
Every key its own
Each key keeps its own take and pitch, like a real board, so fast typing doesn't sound like one sample on repeat.
Stereo by position
Q sits a little left and P a little right, like the keyboard in front of you. One checkbox turns it off.
Key-up sounds
Real keys sound on the way back up too. On the keyboard packs, Keyslam plays a recorded release, quieter after a soft press. The typewriter packs have no key-up sound.
Rests when you do
After 3 minutes without typing, the audio and the motion sensor switch off until your next key press.
Bring your own pack
Drop WAV, AIFF or FLAC recordings with a small pack.json into the Packs folder from the menu bar.
Open at login
Tick one box and the sounds are there after every restart, from the menu bar.
Pricing
$3.99 once. Every Mac you own.
Try everything free for 7 days, no account and no card. One payment then covers all the Macs you own, with free updates and every future pack. How the trial, license and refunds work.
- All 15 real boards, plus future packs
- Force sensing on supported MacBooks
- A personal license for all your Macs
- Free updates, no subscription
- Stripe checkout, full refund within 14 days
Questions people ask first
Does the Keyslam app connect to the internet?
No. The app makes no network connections at all. Your license key is Ed25519-signed and checked offline on your Mac, and the trial start date lives in your Mac's Keychain. You only go online in your browser, to download Keyslam or to pay on Stripe's checkout page.
Is Keyslam a native Mac app?
Yes. It's written in Swift with a C real-time audio core, not Electron or a web wrapper. The whole app, with all 15 packs, is about 16 MB, the audio buffer is about 5 ms, and after 3 idle minutes it switches its audio and the motion sensor off.
Which apps does Keyslam play sounds in?
Any app you type in. It listens to the keyboard system-wide, with the Input Monitoring permission, instead of inside one app. Password fields are the exception: macOS hides those keystrokes from all apps, so nothing plays there.
Can I try Keyslam before I buy it?
Yes. The Mac app is free for 7 days with everything unlocked, and the board on this page plays the same 15 recordings in your browser.
Recordings
Thanks to the people who recorded these keyboards and typewriters
Every source recording is CC0 (public domain) on Freesound. Keyslam cuts each one into single keystrokes and credits it here and on each sound page.
- MX Blue: 46 takes from “Mechanical Keyboard 'Cherry Blue Switches'” by EricsSoundschmiede (CC0)
- MX Brown: 42 takes from “Mechanical Keyboard Cherry MX Brown” by majod (CC0)
- MX Red: 46 takes from “Keyboard clicking typing Cherry Red Mechanical” by handygaber (CC0)
- MX Black: 43 takes from “leopold fc980m pd cherry mx black.flac” by ujonathan (CC0)
- Gateron Red: 42 takes from “Typing on a mechanical keyboard” by IRF1010N (CC0)
- Topre: 30 takes from “Keyboard Typing 2 (HHKB, Topre)” by grcekh (CC0)
- Leopold: 43 takes from “Mechanical Keyboard Typing (Treble Version)” by stu556 (CC0)
- WhiteFox: 45 takes from “Keyboard Typing 10 (WhiteFox, Mechanical)” by grcekh (CC0)
- Rainy 75: 42 takes from “Typing on a rainy 75” by Techrul (CC0)
- Unicomp: 46 takes from “Typing on a keyboard” by SamsterBirdies (CC0)
- Model F: 39 takes from “IBM Model F keyboard typing” by Fractal_ (CC0)
- Vintage Technics: 42 takes from “Keyboard typing sounds: Unidentified Technics keyboard” by zrrion (CC0)
- Laptop: 39 takes from “Computer keyboard typing and keystrokes - Apple MacBook Pro 2018” by khenshom (CC0)
- Selectric: 20 takes from “Typewriter, IBM Selectric II” by secretmojo and “Typewriter bell & carriage reset” by knufds (CC0)
- Olivetti: 25 takes from “typewriter-olivetti-lettra-22.wav” by keithpeter and “Typewriter ding_near_mono.wav” by _stubb (CC0)
Give every key some weight.
15 real boards, force sensing on supported MacBooks, $3.99 once.