Auto Toggle MacBook Internal Keyboard

me@iany.me (Ian Yang) — Fri, 17 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

I prefer using external keyboard with my MacBook. When no external monitors are used, a typical setup is placing the keyboard above the internal one, so I can still use the internal touchpad.

But sometimes the external keyboard may press some keys of the internal keyboard. There is a solution to disable the internal keyboard, but it is tedious to run the command manually.

# Disable, ignore the warning
sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBTopCase.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBTCKeyboard.kext/
# Enable
sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBTopCase.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBTCKeyboard.kext/

Fortunately, Keyboard Maestro supports executing scripts when a USB device is attached or detached.

I have created two macros to enable and disable internal keyboard.

Before the macros can be used, you must setup sudoers to allow running the command without password.

$ sudo visudo

And append following line to the file and save it.

%admin ALL = NOPASSWD: /sbin/kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBTopCase.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBTCKeyboard.kext, /sbin/kextload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBTopCase.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBTCKeyboard.kext

Then restart sudo session

$ sudo -K

~iany/ Keyboard Maestro

Auto Toggle MacBook Internal Keyboard