Keyboard heatmap · macOS
The map of
your hands.
A keyboard heatmap colors every key by how hard you lean on it — and turns the ones you fumble red. Pulse draws yours automatically as you work, across every app on your Mac. No test. No setup. Just the truth about your hands.
Heatmap
KeyboardPulse's real Heatmap view — hover a key for its rank, usage share and error rate.
How to read it
Frequency in graphite
The harder you lean on a key, the darker it sits. Space and E dominate; your pinkies barely register.
Failure in red
Keys you correct often turn red. That’s where accuracy leaks — and exactly what Practice drills.
Everything, everywhere
Not a typing test. Every keystroke, in every app, all day — so the map is actually you.
What your keyboard heatmap reveals
You press tens of thousands of keys a day and remember almost none of them. A keyboard heatmap turns that invisible stream into one picture: where your fingers actually go, how the work is shared out, and where it quietly breaks down.
The keys you live on
Typing is wildly lopsided. A handful of keys — space, E, T, A — carry most of your day while the outer pinkies barely move. Seeing the real distribution explains why one finger tires first, why a shortcut feels awkward, and whether a switch to Colemak or Dvorak would genuinely help your hands. Your numbers decide that, not folklore.
Where accuracy quietly leaks
Speed is rarely lost in big, obvious mistakes — it leaks one backspace at a time. Pulse turns the keys you correct most red, so a letter you fumble 9% of the time across a couple of thousand presses stops hiding inside your average. That one key, drilled in Practice, is often the cheapest WPM you will ever buy back.
A habit, not a snapshot
A typing test measures sixty seconds on someone else's words. Your heatmap is built from your work — every keystroke, in every app, across every keyboard you connect — so it reflects how you really type, not how you perform under a stopwatch. And because Pulse filters out paste, snippets and AI, the map shows your hands and nothing else.
“Z” has a 9% error rate over 1,960 presses.
Most people never find out. You will.
Keyboard heatmap, answered.
What is a keyboard heatmap?
A keyboard heatmap is a visual map of how often you press each key. Darker keys are used more; Pulse also tints keys red when you mistype them often, so you can see both your most-used keys and your weakest ones at a glance.
How does Pulse build my keyboard heatmap?
Pulse measures your typing automatically in the background across every Mac app, then colors each key by how many times you pressed it and how often you corrected it. It updates continuously — no test or setup required.
Does Pulse record what I type?
No. Pulse counts that a key was pressed and when — never the letters, words or passwords. Everything stays in a local database on your Mac; nothing is sent to any server.