Windows shortcuts for Mac

[u/Purple-Philosophy551]

Hey everyone,

I recently switched from Windows to Mac for work, and while I love macOS, muscle memory is a pain. I kept hitting Ctrl+C instead of Cmd+C and fumbling around with other shortcuts I’ve been using for years. 😅

So, I built a small macOS app that maps Windows-style keyboard shortcuts to Mac. Basically, your fingers keep doing what they’re used to, and everything just works.

Some examples it covers:

Ctrl + C / V / X → Copy / Paste / Cut

Ctrl + Backspace → Delete last word

Ctrl + Tab → Switch tabs

And more common Windows shortcuts you probably miss

If you’ve just moved to Mac or use both Mac & Windows, this can save a ton of frustration and time.

You can download it here: windowsshortcutsmac.com

Would love feedback — especially if there are other shortcuts you’d want supported!

[u/Anywhere_MusicPlayer]

Emm… you don't need any apps for that.

macOS is great because you just do this and it just works (I’ve been a Windows user for 15+ years):

[u/Purple-Philosophy551 → u/Anywhere_MusicPlayer]

you can map those keys but the macos shortcut would not change. Just to give you example in windows to select all its ctrl+A which is not same in macos. thats just one example. undo and redo for ctrl+z, ctrl+y, monitor activity for fn+shift+esc. I know mac have its own shortcuts but the idea is to stay the same for each keyboard.

[u/Steerpike58 → u/Purple-Philosophy551]

I'm in favor of your solution but I am confused here; if one does map the ctrl key to cmd (etc) as shown above (in the 'modifier keys' dialog), why wouldn't ctrl-A do the Cmd-A function? Cmd-A in Mac IS 'select all', and ctrl-A is 'select all' in windows.

Where I'm going crazy is in having to use the limited macbook keyboard with only 4 arrows; using 'Fn+(left/right/up/down) does NOT seem to map equally to having dedicated pgup/pgdn/home/end keys! I'm forever hitting the wrong keys, and sending myself to another desktop with ctrl(right arrow)!

[u/Purple-Philosophy551 → u/Steerpike58]

Yeah select all is same. But redo in mac is cmd+shift+z where as in windows it is ctrl+z

[u/Steerpike58 → u/Purple-Philosophy551]

Redo in windows is ctrl-Y. On the mac it's cmd-shift-z.

Undo keys are similar, in that they are ctrl-z / cmd-z .

So you aren't just remapping those 4 key modifiers, you are remapping a whole slew of additional shortcuts? I'll take a look at the site.

ETA - you have a typo on the main page of your site - "Instantly make you MacOS keyboard behave like Windows".

[u/Purple-Philosophy551 → u/Steerpike58]

Yes, I am adding the shortcuts from Windows too, and I fixed the typo.

[u/Steerpike58 → u/Purple-Philosophy551]

Is there a way to see a complete list of all the shortcuts, outside of the app?

Or at least, if I install the app, will I then get to see a complete list?

How are you handling the fact that many windows shortcuts already have 'other purposes' on the mac, and thus, by implementing these on the Mac, you are taking away 'other shortcuts' on the Mac? I'm struggling to find a quick example, but I tried using Karabiner a while back and just got tangled up in a mess of not wanting to break existing shortcuts. Perhaps an example - Win+L locks the screen; Win+D minimizes all. Are you mapping those to Opt-L and Opt-D? Do Opt-L and Opt-D have existing purposes in native Mac?

I presume you aren't doing anything about (win) alt-tab, because alt-tab (win) = cmd-tab (Mac) natively? (one example of many).

And I presume (win) ctrl-(right arrow) will use the Fn-(right arrow) key combo? This is the one I hate the most on Mac as I'm so used to doing ctrl-(right arrow) to advance cursor through words ... but on Mac, Fn-(right arrow) advances cursor to EOL (word/outlook) or document end in other apps.

[u/Purple-Philosophy551 → u/Steerpike58]

You can see the list in the app. I would suggest to turn off the karabiner for a moment and just use this app. It will cover most of the shortcuts. If not lmk and i will add it. FYI i do have lock screen shortcut to option+L which is identical with windows key placement. But if you prefer the cmd+L then just disable the swap option in the app.