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Cleankey is a tiny, free macOS menu bar app that temporarily locks your keyboard so you can wipe down the keys without triggering accidental keystrokes. Flip the toggle on, clean at your leisure, flip it off. That's it.
Wiping down a Mac keyboard normally fires off a storm of keystrokes — opening apps, deleting text, changing volume, even triggering shortcuts. Cleankey blocks all keyboard input system-wide with a single toggle, so you can clean safely. No accidental typing, no surprise actions.
- Lock your keyboard instantly — one click in the menu bar
- Blocks every key — letters, numbers, modifiers (⌘ ⌥ ⌃ ⇧), and media keys (volume, brightness, play/pause)
- Lives in the menu bar — no Dock icon, no app switcher clutter
- Instant off — everything returns to normal the moment you toggle back
- Lightweight & native — built in Swift/SwiftUI, no background bloat
Cleankey installs a system-wide event tap at the HID level, intercepting key events before they reach any app. While blocking is active, all keyboard input — including modifier keys and media keys like play/pause and volume — is silently dropped. Toggle it off and everything returns to normal instantly.
Because it operates at the HID level, Cleankey needs two permissions:
- Accessibility — to create the event tap
- Input Monitoring — to intercept keyboard events system-wide
Both can be granted in System Settings. Cleankey includes shortcuts to jump straight there.
- macOS 13.5 (Ventura) or later
- Works on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs
Two options:
- Download the .zip archive on the "Releases" section on here and simply drop the
Cleankey.appfile into your/Applications(or wherever you want). - Download the whole repository, build the project in Xcode and drop
Cleankey.appinto your/Applicationsfolder.
Cleankey lives entirely in the menu bar, which means no Dock icon, no app switcher entry. As simple as it gets.
How do I unlock the keyboard once it's locked? Click the Cleankey icon in the menu bar with your mouse or trackpad and flip the toggle off. The mouse stays fully functional while the keyboard is locked.
Does Cleankey block media and function keys too? Yes. Volume, brightness, and play/pause/media keys are all blocked while cleaning mode is on, so wiping the top row won't change your settings.
Why does Cleankey need Accessibility and Input Monitoring permissions? Both are required by macOS to intercept keyboard events system-wide. Cleankey only uses them to drop keystrokes while locking is active — it does not log, store, or transmit anything you type.
Is Cleankey safe? Does it record my keystrokes? No. Cleankey simply drops key events while active and never reads, saves, or sends them anywhere.
Will it disable my keyboard permanently if the app crashes? No. The keyboard lock only exists while Cleankey is running and toggled on. Quitting the app restores normal input immediately.
Made by Nick Ringelmann