How to Change Keyboard Language on Mac Easily

To change the keyboard language on a Mac, press Control + Space, or press the Globe (fn) key if your keyboard has one. To add a language, open System Settings, click Keyboard, and next to Input Sources click Edit.

If you write in more than one language, you switch keyboard languages all day. It helps to know the shortcuts and the settings behind them.

Default shortcuts to switch languages

• Control + Space: switches to the previous keyboard language (input source).
• Control + Option + Space: moves to the next input source in the list. This is useful when you have three or more.
• Globe (fn) key: on Macs with a Globe key, pressing it can switch languages. You can choose what it does in System Settings, Keyboard.

How to add or remove a keyboard language

1. Open System Settings and click Keyboard.
2. Under Text Input, click Edit… next to Input Sources.
3. Click the + button at the bottom of the list.
4. Pick a language, such as English, Russian, German or Spanish, then choose a layout.
5. Click Add, then Done.

To change the switching shortcut, go to System Settings, Keyboard, Keyboard Shortcuts…, Input Sources.

Why your Mac switches language by itself

In the same Input Sources settings there is an option called Automatically switch to a document's input source. When it is on, your Mac changes the language to match what you last used in each window. If this annoys you, turn it off.

The wrong-layout problem

The biggest time loss is typing a whole sentence and then seeing it came out in the wrong alphabet, for example ghbdtn instead of привет. By default, you have to delete it, switch the language and type it again.

Fixing wrong-layout text with Tegaro

Tegaro Layout fixes text typed in the wrong layout between English and Russian, without retyping.

• Manual fixes: convert text you typed in the wrong layout yourself. After the 14-day trial, manual fixes stay unlimited.
• Automatic fixes: Tegaro can also fix words as you type. After the trial, you get 100 automatic fixes per calendar month.

Frequently Asked Questions