This is how you remove the Capslock Delay

hidutil property --set '{"CapsLockDelayOverride":200}'

this works pretty well, you have to intentionally press hard on the capslock to activate it, so it wont press randomly with your pinky finger or something. sorry about the delay btw. to make this run on startup and refresh every 30 seconds though, you should run:

mkdir -p ~/Library/LaunchAgents

cat > ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.local.capslock-delay.plist <<'EOF'
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
  "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.local.capslock-delay</string>

    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/bin/hidutil</string>
        <string>property</string>
        <string>--set</string>
        <string>{"CapsLockDelayOverride":200}</string>
    </array>

    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true/>

    <key>StartInterval</key>
    <integer>30</integer>
</dict>
</plist>
EOF

and then you should run:

launchctl bootout gui/$(id -u) ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.local.capslock-delay.plist 2>/dev/null
launchctl bootstrap gui/$(id -u) ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.local.capslock-delay.plist

and then to check if its actually working, you run:

hidutil property --get CapsLockDelayOverride

ill also post the launchd agent for the no delay one.

w2cky wrote:

actually, for your situation, i realised that this:

hidutil property --set '{"CapsLockDelayOverride":1000}'

would probably work better. just replace 200 in the agent to 1000 and it should basically mean you have to press and hold the capslock for one second to actually activate it.

Works great. Now I don't accidentally enable it when I'm too lazy to home my fingers correctly.

oh and to stop it, you run:

launchctl bootout gui/$(id -u) ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.local.capslock-delay.plist
rm ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.local.capslock-delay.plist

actually, for your situation, i realised that this:

hidutil property --set '{"CapsLockDelayOverride":1000}'

would probably work better. just replace 200 in the agent to 1000 and it should basically mean you have to press and hold the capslock for one second to actually activate it.

What CapslockDelay? There was a known issue with a Caps Lock keypress delay that affected very old Mac models from >15 years ago – Wayback Machine link. There were more recent reports on Macs with butterfly keyboards, but all of those are Intel Macs and none of them can run macOS Golden Gate.

On my MacBook Pro running macOS 27 Golden Gate, when I press the caps lock key it immediately activates or deactivates. Test TEST test.

But ok, there's a Terminal command...thanks?

When i first got my mac yesterday, lighter, quicker presses on the caps lock wouldn’t activate it. I use a macbook air M3 btw. I wouldn’t say its a delay per se, but its almost like a block depending on how quick you press the caps lock. I type quite lightly and fast, so it would really annoy me when the caps lock just wouldn’t activate when i need it to.

w2cky wrote:

When i first got my mac yesterday, lighter, quicker presses on the caps lock wouldn’t activate it. I use a macbook air M3 btw. I wouldn’t say its a delay per se, but its almost like a block depending on how quick you press the caps lock. I type quite lightly and fast, so it would really annoy me when the caps lock just wouldn’t activate when i need it to.

Thanks for your post w2cky. Good computing !

w2cky wrote:

actually, for your situation, i realised that this:

hidutil property --set '{"CapsLockDelayOverride":1000}'

would probably work better. just replace 200 in the agent to 1000 and it should basically mean you have to press and hold the capslock for one second to actually activate it.

thanks, I’ll give it a try when I have a chance

Got it, and in that case, good fix!

Do you know anything more about those settings, like if it is possible to increase the delay time? Or even better, press and hold to activate.

how do I turn this **** off now??

What one did you use? The agent?