How to Turn Your Mac Keyboard Into a PC Keyboard

After using various Windows computers across a career in traditional finance, switching to Mac was scary (and frustrating). Suddenly there’s this new Command key and I have to switch between Command and Control for basic shortcuts that on Windows would just always be Control. There’s also tons of other shortcuts that just no longer work, especially when using Google Sheets.

Well I didn’t accept it and I set out to solve it — read below for my guide on how to get the best parts of a Mac laptop while still using your familiar Windows shortcuts and keyboard.

Why It Feels Broken

On Windows, the Control key is your primary modifier — Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+Z, Ctrl+S. On Mac, that role belongs to Command (⌘). So when you hit Ctrl+C on a Mac, nothing happens. Your fingers are right, but the OS is listening for the wrong key.

To make it worse, macOS reserves Ctrl+Arrow keys for Mission Control and Spaces — swiping between desktops. So if you’re in Google Sheets or a text editor trying to jump to the next word or cell boundary with Ctrl+Arrow, macOS intercepts it and throws you into a desktop animation instead.

The Simple Fix: Swap Control and Command Entirely

The fastest option is to swap your Left Control and Left Command keys system-wide. You can actually do this right in macOS settings — go to System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Modifier Keys, then swap Control and Command from the dropdowns. If you prefer the command line, you can also use hidutil in Terminal. Either way, this makes Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+Z, etc. all work the way you expect because macOS now treats your Control key as Command.

Open Terminal and run this command:

This resets on every reboot, so you’d need to add it to a login script to make it permanent. It’s a decent quick fix, but it has a downside: every shortcut that genuinely needs Control (like Ctrl+Arrow for cell navigation in spreadsheets) now requires you to hit the Command key instead, which can get confusing. If you use Google Sheets or Excel heavily, read on for the better approach.

The Better Fix: Karabiner-Elements

Karabiner-Elements is a free, open-source key remapping tool for macOS. Instead of swapping the entire modifier key, it lets you remap specific key combos. This is the best-of-both-worlds approach: Ctrl+C sends Command+C (copy), but Ctrl+Arrow still sends native Control+Arrow (cell navigation).

Install it with Homebrew:

Then add rules to remap only the specific Ctrl+letter combos you want to behave like Windows. The combos most people need are:

• Ctrl+C → Cmd+C (copy)
• Ctrl+V → Cmd+V (paste)
• Ctrl+X → Cmd+X (cut)
• Ctrl+Z → Cmd+Z (undo)
• Ctrl+A → Cmd+A (select all)
• Ctrl+S → Cmd+S (save)
• Ctrl+F → Cmd+F (find)
• Ctrl+T → Cmd+T (new tab)
• Ctrl+W → Cmd+W (close tab)
• Ctrl+N → Cmd+N (new window)
• Ctrl+R → Cmd+R (refresh)
• Ctrl+P → Cmd+P (print)
• Ctrl+L → Cmd+L (address bar)

Everything else — Ctrl+Arrow, Ctrl+Space, Ctrl+Shift+anything — passes through as native Control, which is exactly what apps like Google Sheets, Excel, and VS Code expect. Karabiner’s config lives at ~/.config/karabiner/karabiner.json and auto-reloads when you edit it.

Disable Mission Control Shortcuts

Even with Karabiner set up, macOS still intercepts Ctrl+Arrow for Mission Control and Spaces by default. This is the thing that steals your Ctrl+Left/Right for navigating between words or jumping between cells. You need to disable these shortcuts.

You can do this in System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Mission Control, or run a set of terminal commands to disable them all at once. The key ones to disable are:

• Ctrl+Up (Mission Control)
• Ctrl+Down (Application Windows)
• Ctrl+Left (Move left a space)
• Ctrl+Right (Move right a space)

Important: Ctrl+Left and Ctrl+Right (Spaces) require a full log out and back in to release. Ctrl+Up and Ctrl+Down take effect after restarting the Dock. If the shortcuts still feel sticky after disabling them, log out and log back in — that fixes it every time.

What About Spreadsheets?

If you’re reading this because you’re a spreadsheet person who switched from Windows — I’ve been there. The keyboard remapping above gets your general OS shortcuts feeling right, but spreadsheets have their own layer of pain: Alt-key sequences for formatting, borders, number formats, and more.

I built XLKeys specifically for this. It’s a Chrome extension that brings all the Excel-style Alt-key shortcuts into Google Sheets — Alt+H,H for fill color, Alt+H,B,A for borders, Alt+H,O,I for autofit, and dozens more. On Mac you use Option instead of Alt and everything just works. Between Karabiner for the OS and XLKeys for spreadsheets, your Mac will feel like a PC where it counts.

Troubleshooting Tips

• Gaming keyboards (like Lenovo Legion) sometimes have a hardware toggle (often Fn+F9) that disables the Windows key entirely — check for that first.
• Karabiner-Elements overrides hidutil and macOS modifier settings, so don’t run both at the same time.
• Use Keyboard Viewer (System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources → Show keyboard viewer) to see exactly what macOS receives when you press a key — invaluable for debugging.
• If Ctrl+Space triggers Spotlight after remapping, disable Spotlight’s shortcut in System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Spotlight, or rebind it to Option+Space.