TypeClack

TypeClack gives a laptop keyboard the sound of a mechanical one. Press any key, in any app, and you hear a switch: a bright click, a deep thock, or something quiet enough for a shared room. Nothing about how you type changes. Only how it sounds.

It runs in the menu bar and stays out of the way. Everything happens on your own computer, offline, with no account.

Highlights

1. It sounds like it happened, not like it replied - the sound starts about 8 milliseconds after the key goes down, and the app measures its own timing and shows you the number. Fast typing overlaps naturally: sounds ring over each other the way a real board does, instead of cutting each other off.
2. Three sounds to wear - Clack is bright and clicky, in the shape of a blue switch on a hollow board. Thock is deep and dampened, the way a foam-filled board with thick caps lands. Feather is quiet and close, for a late night. Every one of them is built in code rather than recorded, so they are public domain and yours to keep.
3. A spacebar that sounds like a spacebar - the long stabilised keys, enter, backspace and the modifiers all get their own voice, and every key carries a small pitch of its own, so a hundred keystrokes never turn into one sample on a loop.
4. Your soundpacks already work - TypeClack reads the Mechvibes soundpack format, both the single-file and the one-file-per-key layouts. Point it at the folder yours live in and they appear, with what the pack says about its author, its keys and its licence.
5. Silence for calls - name the apps you take calls in and TypeClack goes quiet the moment one of them comes to the front, then comes back when you leave. There is also a shortcut that mutes everything from anywhere, without finding a window first.
6. A practice screen - a typing drill with speed and accuracy, so you can put a pack under your fingers before you commit to it. The passages are public domain prose; the word drills come from the same books.
7. Honest about what it can see - it reads which key was pressed and plays a sound. Nothing is recorded, nothing is stored, nothing is sent anywhere. The only request it ever makes is checking for a new version.
8. A real desktop app - menu bar item, proper menus, full light and dark appearance, open at login if you want it.

How it works

The first time you open TypeClack it asks for one permission. macOS calls it Accessibility, and it is the only way an app is allowed to know that a key was pressed while another app is in front. TypeClack uses it for exactly that and nothing else. The screen explains it, opens the right settings pane for you, and switches itself over the moment you grant it - there is nothing to restart.

After that, pick a sound, set the volume, and close the window. The app lives in the menu bar, where you can mute it, switch packs, or quit. Type anywhere and it plays.

Perfect for

1. Anyone typing on a laptop or a low-profile keyboard who misses the feel of a mechanical one
2. People who like the sound of a mech board but cannot justify one, or cannot have one on their desk
3. Anyone who already collects Mechvibes soundpacks and wants a native app to play them
4. People who take calls all day and need the clacking to stop by itself
5. Anyone who would rather their keystrokes never left their own machine