Hold a key.
Get the accents.

What it does

One setting, two behaviours

On macOS the whole feature is a single boolean called ApplePressAndHoldEnabled. Leave it on and holding a key opens the accent menu. Turn it off and the key repeats, which is what people who write code or play games usually want. There is no third option, and there does not need to be.

pressandhold recreates both, and fixes the part everyone complains about: on macOS you must log out or restart the application for a change to apply. Here it takes effect within a second.

Setup

Installing on Windows

Two routes. The download takes a minute; building it yourself takes about ninety seconds and means you never have to take anyone's word for what the binary does. For a program that reads every keystroke, the second is worth considering.

1. Get the binaries

   Download: grab pressandhold-windows-x64.zip from the latest release and unzip it somewhere permanent — C:\Tools\pressandhold is fine. Verify the checksum against SHA256SUMS.txt in the same release.

   Or build it: install rustup, then:

   git clone https://github.com/__REPO__
   cd pressandhold
   cargo build --release
   # binaries land in target\release\

2. Expect a SmartScreen warning

   The builds are not code-signed yet, and Windows is right to be suspicious of an unsigned program that hooks the keyboard. If you downloaded rather than built, this is the moment to decide whether you trust it — the security section is there to help you decide, not to talk you past it.

3. Run the daemon

   Double-click pressandhold.exe, or run it from a terminal. It prints its version, its config path and the current mode, then sits there.

   .\pressandhold.exe

   That console window is the program. There is no tray icon yet, so closing the window is how you stop it. Do not run it as administrator — it will refuse, on purpose.

4. Try it in Notepad

   Hold a for about half a second. An a appears immediately, then the menu opens above it. Press 2 and the a becomes á. Arrow keys move the selection, Enter confirms, Esc cancels and leaves the plain letter.

   Keys with accents are a c e i l n o s u y z and their capitals. Everything else repeats exactly as it always did.

5. Switch modes whenever you like

   .\pah.exe set false   # hold to repeat the character
   .\pah.exe set true    # hold for the accent menu
   .\pah.exe show        # the whole current config

   No restart. Add the folder to your PATH if you want to type pah from anywhere.

6. Start it with Windows (optional)

   Press Win+R, run shell:startup, and put a shortcut to pressandhold.exe in the folder that opens.

   Hold off on this until you have used it for a few days. It is a beta, and you want to be able to remember what you started.

Configuration

The config file

Everything lives in one TOML file at %APPDATA%\pressandhold\config.toml. pah path prints it, pah show dumps the effective settings. The daemon notices edits within a second.

mode = "accent-menu"      # or "repeat-character"
hold-ms = 500             # how long before the menu opens
wrap-selection = false    # arrow keys wrap at the ends
menu-timeout-ms = 5000    # close an abandoned menu
tables = ["us"]           # or ["us", "extended"]
excluded-apps = ["some-game.exe"]

excluded-apps is the important one. Held keys mean movement, not text, in games, and a and s are both accent keys — so add anything where a popup appearing mid-match would be unwelcome. Run pah table us to see every candidate list.

Before you run it

It reads every key you press

There is no way to build this without a global keyboard hook, which means the program is structurally indistinguishable from a keylogger. Pretending otherwise would be the wrong way to earn your trust, so here is the honest version.

What happens to your keystrokes

Nothing is logged, stored, or transmitted. The project contains no network code at all — no socket, no telemetry, no update check — and a CI job fails the build if one ever appears. The process touches exactly one file, its own config. The most it holds at once is a single character. You can confirm all of that from outside with Process Monitor and about two minutes.

Deliberate limits

• Refuses to run as administrator, so it can never see or type into elevated windows and credential prompts.
• Only one copy can run at a time.
• A broken config file makes it stand down to plain key repeat, never to "switch the intrusive thing back on".
• Before replacing a letter it re-checks that the window and caret it started from are still there, because that replacement deletes a character.

Kernel anti-cheat treats keyboard hooks as an automation vector, so don't run it while playing competitive games. The full write-up, including what a security review found and what is still open, is in SECURITY.md.

Honest status

What works and what doesn't

This is 0.1.0-beta.1. The behaviour is covered by tests and the Windows backend has been through a security review, but almost nobody has used it yet.

Contributing

Four ways to help

The behaviour lives in a crate with no operating system in it, so most of the project is testable anywhere — and the Windows backend type-checks on Linux and macOS too. You do not need a PC to work on the PC part.

Questions

Frequently asked

How do I type accented characters on Windows without alt codes?

Hold the base letter. Holding a gives à á â ä æ ã å ā; press 1–9 or use the arrow keys. Nothing to memorise, which is the entire point — alt codes and the character map both require you to know something before you can type something.

How is this different from WinCompose or the compose key?

A compose key is a different gesture: press a dedicated key, then a sequence (Compose ' e for é). It is excellent and it covers far more characters. This is specifically the hold the key you already pressed behaviour, so people coming from a Mac keep a reflex they already have. If you already think in compose sequences, you probably want WinCompose instead.

Does it work in games?

Turn it off there. Holding a and s means movement, not text, and kernel anti-cheat treats keyboard hooks as an automation vector — you can be flagged. Add the executable to excluded-apps, or run pah set false before you play.

Why is it not signed?

Code-signing certificates cost money and the project has none yet. SmartScreen will warn you, and that warning is doing its job. Until then, building from source is the recommendation — it is one command.

When will Linux work?

When someone builds it. The design is settled — an IBus or Fcitx5 input method engine, because it is the only approach that works on X11 and Wayland across GNOME and KDE — and the behaviour it needs is already written and tested. The missing part is the engine plumbing, and it is the largest open piece of the project.

Is this affiliated with Apple?

No. It is an independent reimplementation of a behaviour, written from scratch in Rust. No Apple code is involved, and macOS is only referenced as the thing being matched.