Name: Kiiwi
Author: Tamil Iniyan

Is this for you

Sound in your ears,
not in the room.

For people who type for hours and share the room while doing it: writers, developers, students, anyone on a laptop in an open-plan office, a library or a shared flat. Plug in headphones and the board sounds mechanical to you and silent to everyone else.

What Kiiwi is

Mechanical switch sound layered under the keyboard you already own
Yours alone on headphones, or shared with the room on speakers
A menu bar utility: no window, no Dock icon, 0% CPU between keystrokes
38 real switches, named, so you can pick the one you actually like

What Kiiwi isn't

A way to make a loud keyboard quiet. It adds sound, it cannot remove it
A change to how your keys feel. Travel and weight stay exactly as they are
A remapper, a macro tool or a text expander
Anything that reads what you type. It hears that a key moved, not which word it spelled

Listens for keys, never reads what you type. A key event picks a sample and is discarded in the same instant.

The details
you hear.

Most of this exists because the obvious shortcut sounded wrong, and I could hear it. Eleven things worth knowing before you install anything that listens to your keyboard.

Spatial by key positionnew

Type Q and it sounds from the left; P comes from the right. Every key is placed by where it physically sits on the board, so a sentence has width to it instead of arriving as a point source between your ears. Subtle on speakers, obvious on headphones.

Near-zero latency

Samples decode to memory at launch and are trimmed to their attack, so there's no silence in front of the sound. A keystroke costs one buffer schedule, with no disk read, no decode and no lag.

Randomised pitch

Five variants of every sample, pre-rendered at ±5% and picked at random per keystroke. Real boards never repeat exactly, and a fixed sample starts sounding like a toy within a sentence.

Row-aware sound

Number row, top row, home row and bottom row are separate recordings, because they don't sound the same on a real board. Space, enter and backspace get their own too.

Survives your headphones

Switching output device rebuilds the audio graph automatically. Most apps built this way go silent until you relaunch them. Kiiwi reconnects and keeps typing.

Key-up sounds

22 of the 38 packs carry release recordings, so you hear the key coming back up as well as going down. The option is hidden on the packs that don't have them, rather than doing nothing.

Mouse clicks, panned

Two mouse packs with real stereo placement: left button to the left, right to the right. Pulled back from full separation, because the two buttons sit millimetres apart in reality.

Completely private

Keystrokes are read to choose a sound and are never stored, transmitted or logged. The only thing Kiiwi ever sends is your licence key, once, when you activate.

Stays out of the way

Menu bar only, no Dock icon unless you ask, 0% CPU when you're not typing. Only the switch you're using is held in memory.

Starts with your Mac

Optional launch at login, and it comes back exactly as you left it: same switch, same volume, same settings.

Universal binary

One 12 MB download that runs natively on Apple silicon and Intel. No Rosetta, no separate builds to choose between.

Measured, not estimated

Every figure below comes off the shipping build.

0.00ms

Silence before the attack

Every sample is trimmed at build time to the moment the sound actually starts. One pack shipped with 19.5ms of dead air in front of it. You hear that as lag, and it's gone.

365

Checks on every build

A self-check binary runs before anything ships: every switch resolves a sample for every key, every pack decodes, and the audio graph survives a device change.

Pack in memory

Only the switch you're using is decoded. Holding all 38 cost 48 MB of audio; loading on selection dropped the app to 58 MB total, with no loss in quality: same float32, same five pitch variants.

16ms

To change switch

Measured across all 38. Fast enough that picking a different switch from the menu feels instant rather than like loading something.

Voices of polyphony

A pool of player nodes means fast typing overlaps properly instead of cutting itself off. Type at 120 wpm and every keystroke still sounds.

Keystrokes stored

No analytics, no telemetry, no update ping you didn't ask for. Keys are read to pick a sound and discarded. The only thing Kiiwi sends is your licence key.

Why this exists

I could hear
the shortcuts.

No reviews here yet. Kiiwi has not been released, so anything in this space would be invented. Here is what is true instead.

Most apps in this category are a folder of samples and a player. The first version of Kiiwi was too, and it sounded wrong in a way I could not stop noticing.

One pack had 19.5 milliseconds of silence in front of the recording. You don't hear that as silence, you hear it as lag. Every sample is now trimmed at build time to the moment the sound actually starts, which is where the 0.00ms comes from.

I listened to 73 community packs to keep 16. The other 22 are switches I could name and verify: Cherry, Gateron, Topre, Alps, the IBM Model M. Nothing in here is called Deep Thock No. 4.

365 checks run before any build ships. Every switch resolves a sample for every key, every pack decodes, and the audio graph survives you unplugging your headphones. That is the part nobody notices, which is the whole point of doing it.

Tamil IniyanBuilt Kiiwi. One person, one Mac, 38 switches.

Before you
download.

The things people actually ask, answered without marketing. If yours isn't here, the answer is probably in the source.

Does it work in every app?

Yes. Kiiwi listens at the system level, so it sounds the same in your editor, your browser, Slack, Terminal and Spotlight. It never intercepts or alters your keystrokes. It only listens for them, so nothing you type is changed, delayed or swallowed.

Why does it need Accessibility permission?

macOS requires it to observe key events system-wide. It's the same permission text-expanders and shortcut apps use. Kiiwi asks once, and the app detects the grant within about a second and a half, with no restart. If you'd rather not grant it, Kiiwi still runs but can only sound for keys typed in its own window.

Is anything I type recorded or sent anywhere?

No. A key event is read only to decide which sample to play, then it's discarded. Nothing is written to disk and nothing is kept in memory beyond that instant. Kiiwi sends one thing, ever: your licence key, to check the licence is still valid. That happens when you activate, on launch, and once a day while it runs; offline it keeps working for 14 days on the last check. What you type never leaves your Mac because it is never held long enough to.

Will it slow my Mac down?

No. Idle CPU is 0%, because nothing runs between keystrokes. A keypress costs one buffer schedule against already-decoded audio. Memory sits around 58 MB because only the switch you're using is loaded.

Does it work on Intel Macs?

Yes. It's a universal binary: one 12 MB download that runs natively on both Apple silicon and Intel, no Rosetta. macOS Sonoma 14.0 or later.

Can I use my own sounds?

Not yet. Custom pack import is planned, and the format is deliberately simple (a folder of WAVs plus a small manifest), so bringing your own recordings won't need anything exotic.

What's the difference between the switches?

Broadly: linear switches are smooth and quiet, tactile ones have a bump you can hear faintly, and clicky ones snap on every press. Beyond that it's housing, keycap material and springs. The playground above is the fastest way to find out which you like, since it's the same audio the app uses.

Your keystrokesdeserve a soundtrack.

NovelKeys Cream

Sound in your ears,not in the room.

What Kiiwi is

What Kiiwi isn't

Type to hear it.

All 38, five at a time.

Linear

Tactile

Clicky

All from your menu bar.

Off in one keystroke

Volume that means something

Every switch, one click deep

Mouse clicks too

Key-up, where it exists

The detailsyou hear.