AutoType

A macOS menu-bar utility that simulates real keyboard input. Paste or type text into it, click Start, and after a short countdown it types the text into whatever application is focused.

It is built for apps that cannot accept a normal paste, such as VNC/RDP viewers, virtual machine consoles, and other tools that capture raw key events. Because AutoType posts genuine virtual-keycode events (not a pasted string), those apps receive the keystrokes as if they came from a physical keyboard.

Features

• Lives in the menu bar (no Dock icon); click the tray icon to show/hide the window.
• Plain-text editor; pasting strips formatting automatically.
• Configurable per-character delay and start countdown.
• Optionally hides the window when typing starts so it stays out of the way.
• Remembers the text and all settings between launches.
• Types via real key events with correct modifier (Shift/Option) presses, so characters like " and ! arrive correctly in raw-key-capture apps.

Requirements

• macOS (Apple Silicon or Intel).
• Accessibility permission. The first time you type, grant it under System Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Accessibility, then retry.

Running from source

Uses uv with Python 3.13.

uv sync
uv run autotype

Building the macOS app

./build.sh

This generates the icon, builds dist/AutoType.app with PyInstaller, and signs it. To install:

cp -R dist/AutoType.app /Applications/
xattr -cr /Applications/AutoType.app

Because the app is ad-hoc signed (no Developer ID), each fresh install is a new identity to macOS, so you will need to re-grant Accessibility permission after reinstalling.

Downloading a release

Pre-built releases are available on the GitHub Releases page. After downloading and unzipping, macOS Gatekeeper will block the app because it was not downloaded from the App Store and is not notarized. Run the following before launching:

xattr -cr /Applications/AutoType.app

Or right-click the app in Finder and choose Open the first time.

You will also need to grant Accessibility permission on first launch.

How it works

• UI and event loop: PyQt6. Typing is driven by a QTimer on the main thread (one character per tick), which avoids a native crash that occurs when the key-event source is created off the main thread.
• Keystroke injection: CoreGraphics, called directly through ctypes. Each character is mapped to its virtual keycode and modifier flags using the active keyboard layout (UCKeyTranslate). For characters that need a modifier, a real Shift/Option key-down/up is posted around the character so raw-key-capture apps forward the right key. Characters with no key on the current layout fall back to a Unicode-string event.

Notes and limitations

• The keycode map is built from the keyboard layout active when typing starts. If the remote machine uses a different layout, some punctuation may differ.
• The app must NOT be signed with the hardened runtime (codesign --options runtime). Hardened runtime enables strict arm64e pointer-authentication enforcement that crashes Qt's static initializers at load time (__CFCheckCFInfoPACSignature). build.sh signs plain ad-hoc to avoid this.

Project layout

src/autotype/main.py   Application code
AutoType.spec          PyInstaller build spec
scripts/make_icon.py   Generates AutoType.icns
build.sh               Build and sign the .app