Macs, known for their elegant design, often require knowing different ways to do such things as changing your browser, learning where your folders are, or even changing your inkjet cartridges. Here is the easiest way to reset your keyboard. The screenshot you see here on the left shows a Mac OS X (Leopard) window that pops up when a new usb keyboard is connected. It asks user to press the key on the right of (left) shift, to detect the correct international map. Yesterday I had a problem with the keyboard of a Mac Mini I have in my office network: “<>” and “\” keys were swapped.
In the italian keyboard, “<>” is the key on the right of left-shift, and “\” (the backslash) is above the TAB key.
Apparently without any valid reason, these keys reversed their position, like (I think) they are on official Apple keyboards (I use instead a normal Toshiba PC keyboard). I tried to disconnect and reconnect the USB plug, but the selection window didn’t appear – I think because the system “remembers” that keyboard, so it doesn’t think it’s necessary to ask user to press keys to detect it again.
After a lot of Googling, I found that it’s necessary to delete a file to make Mac OS completely forget keyboard settings:
/Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist
So, after the deletion of this file, I reconnected the keyboard and I completed the dection wizard. Keys are now fixed 
16 Comments
Thanks for that. Somehow I managed to screw up my keyboard settings tonight, and this fixed it.
Thank you very much. I googled for it for hours
Mille grazie
Merci!
Danke!
Thanks. I lost half a day trying to figure this out, and would have been another whole day i think before getting to this solution
PD: had the º and < keys swapped, on a Spanish ISO keyboard.
Thank you, had the same problem with a german layout pc-keyboard.
I CANT EVEN DELETE IT KEYBOARD IS STUCK IN CAPS LOCKS AND WHEN I TYPE NUMBERS THIS COMES UP > !@£$%^&*()_+
IF ANYONE CAN HELP I CANT DELETE IT BECAUSE I NEED TO ENTER MY PASSWORD AND MY PASSWORD IS LOWER CAPS
Thanks, one hour googled an this fixed it
Thank you so very much.. I’ve spent a couple of days trying to find the correct thing to look for, I couldn’t find anything useful. A helpful guy told me to check out Ukulele but my mind couldn’t focus on it, then I decided to try and look for “osx reset iso usb keyboard” and found your site, and now I have the correct ones. Thank you so much!!!!! This is a real lifesaver, pressing from the laptop keyboard whilst typing stuff on the external USB Keyboard was really doing my head in
how do i delete this file? copying the link into my browser only brings up text edit
You save my day men!! I had this problem with my Spanish Keyboard
Thank you!
omg thank you for this
For everyone trying to delete this file:
Open the application “Terminal” and type this:
sudo rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist
Then you have to type your user password (doesn’t work when you don’t have one).
Another way is to use Finder’s SHIFT+CMD+G to go to the location /Library/Preferences and then deleting the file as usual.
Thx
I search about 45mins on google until i found your blog…
I have been Struggling for awhile and when I went to library, then preferenceS, and then the file com.apple.keyboardtype.pliSt doe not exiSt on my harddrive. HELP.
Trish,
I suspect that if u follow Lucas’s directions above, you will indeed delete the file. Keep in mind that when you select Terminal, you are leaving nicely-designed world of Mac and temporarily entering a dark and mystical world. So, when you type (or cut-paste) Lucas’s suggested command, you will not get a nice confirmation that the file was indeed deleted. However, if you run the command again, and the file was really deleted, it will say “file not found”, which means it’s gone. Yay! One more thing, when you type your password as directed, you don’t see anything. Just type it and press Enter (Return). Hope this helps…
It is not letting e enter any nu,bers and ,y passzord has nu,bers; any suggestions