The typing app for Mac that measures real life

Most "typing apps" are one-off tests or lessons. Pulse is different: it's a macOS app that measures how you actually type — automatically, in the background, across every app you use.

What to look for in a Mac typing app

Real measurement (not just a test), per-app and per-keyboard breakdowns, a keyboard heatmap, honest numbers (AI/autocomplete filtered out), and strong privacy. Pulse does all of it, on-device.

Why Pulse

Live WPM in your menu bar, statistics over time, per-app speed, keyboard comparison, a global leaderboard, and streaks to keep you going — all while nothing leaves your Mac.

Prefer just a quick test?

Use our free typing test for a snapshot, then install Pulse when you want the real, ongoing picture.

Measurement beats testing

A typing test scores sixty seconds on someone else's words. Useful once, then stale. The number you actually care about is how fast you type your own email, your own code, your own messages — at 9am and at 6pm, in Slack and in Xcode. Pulse measures that continuously instead of asking you to perform. It runs natively on macOS and reads keystrokes on-device: it counts that a key fired and when, never the letters themselves. The result is a baseline drawn from real life, not a personal best you hit once and never repeat.

Most apps report a single average and stop. Your typing isn't one number — it changes with the tool. Pulse breaks speed down per app and per keyboard layout, because the same hands run 30 WPM slower in a code editor than in chat, and a borrowed laptop keyboard quietly costs you accuracy. A heatmap shows where the work piles up; the leaderboard shows where you stand once the AI and autocomplete are filtered out.

So when you compare Mac typing apps, the question isn't which one runs the nicest test. It's which one tells you the truth about your hands the other 23 hours of the day. That's the bar we built Pulse to clear, and the same one we use to rate it against the other Mac options.