Keyboard Tester logoKeyboard Tester

Keyboard Tester

Free online keyboard tester for every layout — full size, TKL, 60%, laptop and Mac. Test every key in seconds, right in your browser.

Simply press any key on your keyboard to test it — if it works it will turn green

0Keys Pressed0Total Keys0%Tested

QWERTY on the US ANSI shape: a wide flat Enter and a full-length left Shift. Standard key positions, with no vendor-specific extras.

Ctrl+W, Ctrl+T, Ctrl+N, Alt+Tab and the Windows or Command key are reserved by the browser and the operating system. No web page receives them, so they cannot be tested here or anywhere else in a browser.

Test your exact keyboard

Each page below opens with its own board already selected, so the score matches the hardware in front of you.

See all keyboard tests

A keyboard test built on real hardware geometry

Every board on this keyboard tester is drawn to the key widths, row offsets and cluster gaps of the hardware it represents.

33
Board layouts24 Windows and 9 Apple combinations, each with its own key count.
104
Keys on a full board105 on ISO, where a shortened left Shift adds one more key.
3
Character layoutsQWERTY on ANSI, plus QWERTZ and AZERTY on the ISO shape.
0
Keystrokes sentKey events are read, drawn and discarded inside your browser.

What this online keyboard tester does

A keyboard tester is a diagnostic tool that reads the key events your keyboard sends and draws each one on an on-screen board, so a key that registers turns green and a key that fails stays blank. This free online keyboard tester runs the whole test in the browser: select your keyboard layout, press any key, and the matching cap lights up within a frame.

The tester answers 4 questions a keyboard owner actually has. Does every key register? Does any key fire twice from one press? How many keys can the board report at once? Is the fault in the hardware or in the software? A browser-based keyboard test settles the first three in under a minute, and settles the fourth by moving the same board to a second computer.

Three parts make up the tool. The layout selector picks the physical board — form factor, character layout and platform. The interactive keyboard tester draws that board and lights each cap as it reports. The live score counts tested keys against the total for that layout, so 100% means every key on your specific hardware has been confirmed, not every key on some generic diagram.

How to test your keyboard in 3 steps

A full keyboard key test takes about 60 seconds.

  1. Select your keyboard layout

    Pick the platform, then the form factor matching your hardware — full size, tenkeyless, 75%, 65%, 60%, a laptop board or an Apple keyboard. Choose QWERTY, QWERTZ or AZERTY under Key Layout. The on-screen board redraws to match, down to key widths and the gaps in the function row.

  2. Press every key

    Work left to right along each row rather than at random. Each key that registers turns green and stays green, so the untested keys remain obvious. Test both Shift keys, both Ctrl keys and both Alt keys — each sends its own code.

  3. Read the score

    The counter shows tested keys against the total for your selected board. Reach 100% and every key on that layout has reported. Any cap still blank is a key that did not send an event, which narrows the fault to that switch, the controller or the software claiming it.

What this keyboard tester detects

A browser-based keyboard test catches 6 distinct fault types, each with its own signature on screen.

Reading your keyboard test results

Each cap on the interactive keyboard tester carries one of 3 states.

The score counts only reportable keys. On a 60% board that is 60 of 61 physical keys, and on a 15.6-inch laptop 100 of 101 — the difference is Fn in both.

Why test your keyboard

5 situations make a keyboard key test worth the minute it takes.

Key counts by layout

Every layout below is drawn to the real physical key count, so the totals in the tester match the hardware on your desk.

Testable key count per supported layout
LayoutKeysNotes
Full size (100%)104Alphanumeric block, navigation cluster and numeric keypad
Tenkeyless (80%)87Full size without the numeric keypad
75% compact83Function row kept, navigation keys folded into a right-hand column
65% compact67No function row; Esc sits at the top left
60% mini6061 keys, of which Fn cannot be reported by a browser
13" / 14" laptop83Compact board with an integrated arrow cluster
15.6" / 17.3" laptop100Adds a numeric keypad; 15.6" squeezes the keypad column
MacBook76Touch ID and fn are present but never reported by the browser
Magic Keyboard (with numpad)107Includes F13–F19 and the keypad's Clear and = keys

A handful of keys — Fn, Touch ID and most vendor media keys — are handled inside the keyboard’s own firmware and never reach the browser. They are drawn for accuracy but excluded from the totals. ISO boards (QWERTZ and AZERTY) add one key beside the left Shift, so each count above rises by one.

Keyboard ghosting and key rollover

Ghosting is a keyboard reporting a key you never pressed, or dropping one you did, when 3 or more keys are held at once.

If keys work individually but stop working when you hold several at once, the problem is not a dead key. It is rollover, and it is usually a design limit rather than a fault.

Rollover describes how many keys a board can report simultaneously. Two-key rollover means two. Six-key rollover, the most common, means six ordinary keys plus modifiers — a limit that comes from the standard USB keyboard protocol, which reports six keys and a modifier byte in a single packet. N-key rollover means no limit, achieved by sending several packets or by using a different USB descriptor.

True ghosting is rarer and more dramatic: the keyboard reports a key you never pressed, because its matrix cannot resolve which combination of rows and columns you meant. Modern boards use diodes to prevent it, so what most people call ghosting is really blocking — the board silently declining to report the third or fourth simultaneous key.

Modifiers do not count against the limit, which is why Ctrl, Shift and Alt can be held alongside six other keys on almost any board. For typing, two-key rollover is genuinely sufficient and six is generous. For most gaming, six is fine. It only becomes a real constraint in rhythm games, fighting games and simulators with many bound controls — and if you have never hit it, it is a specification rather than a problem.

Why the Fn key never lights up

No website can test the Fn key. Fn is processed by the microcontroller inside the keyboard, which changes what the other keys send and emits nothing of its own.

Every compact keyboard, every laptop and every Apple board has at least one key that will never light up here, no matter how hard you press it. The most common is Fn.

Fn is not a key in the sense that A or Enter are keys. It is handled entirely inside the microcontroller in your keyboard. When you hold it, the controller changes what the other keys report — Fn plus F5 might send Print Screen, Fn plus J might send a left arrow — and then sends that single, ordinary key code to your computer. Your operating system never learns that Fn was involved, and neither does your browser. There is no web API that exposes it, which means no website can test it. Any keyboard tester claiming otherwise is testing something else.

Touch ID on a MacBook is the same story for a different reason: it is a fingerprint sensor in a key-shaped housing, and it sends no key code at all. Vendor media keys — volume wheels, RGB toggles, dedicated macro columns, aeroplane mode — usually send vendor-specific codes that browsers do not surface either.

The practical consequence is worth stating plainly: if your Fn key appears greyed out and refuses to turn green, your keyboard is fine. Test it instead by holding Fn and pressing a key it modifies. If the modified output arrives — if Fn plus the brightness key changes your brightness — then Fn is working perfectly.

Switch this page to a full-size layout, then hold Fn and press an arrow-layer key. The arrow cap lights up — proof the Fn layer works, even though Fn itself cannot be seen.

Keyboard troubleshooting guide

5 faults account for most keyboard problems. Each has a different signature on the keyboard test and a different fix.

A key does not respond at all

On the test:The cap never turns green, however hard you press.

  1. Press the key 10 times and count how many register. Zero means a hard fault; 3 of 10 means a dirty contact.
  2. Test the same key on a second computer. Working there points at software on the first machine.
  3. Close screen-capture and macro tools, which claim PrintScreen and the function row globally.
  4. Pull the keycap and look at the switch for debris, corrosion or a bent stem.
  5. Swap the switch with one from a key you never use, on a hot-swap board, to confirm the switch rather than the circuit.
One press types two characters

On the test:The cap flickers instead of holding its colour.

  1. Type the key once into a text field and count the characters produced.
  2. Clean the switch with contact cleaner or compressed air aimed across, not down into, the stem.
  3. Lower the repeat rate temporarily in your operating system to confirm the fault is the switch and not key repeat.
  4. Replace the switch. Chatter is switch debounce failing, and cleaning fixes it only sometimes.
Keys stick or need extra force

On the test:The cap stays green after you let go, or needs a deliberate hard press.

  1. Turn the keyboard upside down and shake it firmly to clear loose debris.
  2. Blow compressed air across the switch housing rather than straight down.
  3. Remove the keycap and check it is seated square on the stem — a crooked cap binds against its neighbour.
  4. Wipe dried liquid from the stem with isopropyl alcohol, on a board that has taken a spill.
A whole row or side stops working

On the test:Neighbouring keys fail together in a straight line.

  1. Note which keys failed. A straight row or column means a shared matrix trace, not several dead switches.
  2. Reseat the internal ribbon connector, which works loose on boards that get carried around.
  3. Try a different USB port and a different cable to rule out the connection.
  4. Treat a whole-side failure as a controller fault, which is rarely economic to repair.
The wrong character appears

On the test:The correct cap lights on screen, but the wrong letter is typed.

  1. Check the Key Layout selector matches the legends printed on your keycaps.
  2. Open your operating system's keyboard settings and confirm the active input language.
  3. Remove extra input languages you do not use, which are often switched by an accidental shortcut.
  4. Treat this as a software setting. The keyboard is working — the correct cap lit up.

Every layout drawn to scale

Bar length is real board width. The blocks show which regions survive at each size, and the count on the right is how many keys a browser can test.

Full size104 keys450 mmTenkeyless87 keys360 mm75% compact83 keys325 mm65% compact67 keys308 mm60% mini60 keys290 mm
Keyboard layouts drawn to relative width: full size 450 mm with 104 keys, tenkeyless 360 mm with 87 keys, 75% at 325 mm with 83 keys, 65% at 308 mm with 67 keys, and 60% at 290 mm with 60 keys.

Widths are typical rather than exact: manufacturers vary by a few millimetres at every size. ISO boards add one key beside a shortened left Shift, raising each count by one.

Keyboard layouts and form factors

Two independent axes describe any keyboard: the physical shape that decides which keys exist, and the character layout that decides what is printed on them.

ANSI against ISO

Two independent things vary between keyboards from different countries, and confusing them is the single most common source of confusion when testing.

The first is the character layout: which letters are printed on which caps. QWERTY is the English-speaking standard. QWERTZ, used across Germany, Austria and Switzerland, swaps Y and Z and puts the umlauts on the punctuation caps. AZERTY, used in France and Belgium, moves A, Z and M and puts punctuation on the unshifted number row.

The second is the physical shape of the board, and this is where key counts change. ANSI boards, standard in the United States, have a wide flat Enter key on a single row and a full-length left Shift. ISO boards, standard across Europe, have a tall Enter spanning two rows and notched at the bottom left, a shortened left Shift, and an extra key beside that Shift which browsers report as IntlBackslash. That extra key is why a full-size ISO board has 105 keys where an ANSI board has 104.

The two axes are independent in principle but correlated in practice: QWERTZ and AZERTY boards are essentially always ISO. Selecting either in the Key Layout dropdown therefore changes both the legends and the physical shape of the on-screen board, which is what makes the key count and the score match your hardware.

One thing that never changes is the reported key code. Browsers identify keys by physical position on a reference US board, not by the character printed on the cap. Press the key marked Z on a German keyboard and it reports as KeyY, because that position is KeyY on the reference layout. This is deliberate: it is what lets a game bind WASD and have those bindings land under the same four fingers whether the caps read WASD or ZQSD.

Form factors, from full size to 60%

Keyboards are sold by the percentage of a full-size board they occupy, and each step down removes specific keys rather than shrinking everything proportionally.

Full size, or 100%, has everything: function row, alphanumeric block, a six-key navigation cluster with arrows, and a 17-key number pad. That is 104 keys on ANSI and 105 on ISO, with nothing hidden on a Fn layer.

Tenkeyless, also called TKL or 80%, removes the number pad and nothing else. All the gaps and spacing stay, which is why it remains the most popular enthusiast size: 87 keys, and no relearning.

Seventy-five per cent keeps the function row but removes the gaps, squeezing the navigation keys into a single column down the right edge and tucking the arrows under a shortened right Shift. Sixty-five per cent drops the function row entirely but keeps the arrows. Sixty per cent drops the arrows too, leaving 61 physical keys and putting everything else on the Fn layer.

Laptops are a category of their own. A 13 or 14 inch machine has no room for a number pad and runs a compact 83-key layout. A 15.6 inch machine fits one by narrowing its columns. A 17.3 inch chassis fits a full-width pad and larger caps. All of them have an Fn key that cannot be tested, and ThinkPads famously place it in the bottom-left corner with Ctrl to its right, the reverse of most other manufacturers.

Laptop keyboards

A dead key on a desktop board is an inconvenience; a dead key on a laptop is a repair. You cannot swap the keyboard for a spare to isolate the fault, and replacement usually means opening the chassis. So it is worth being unusually certain before you book anything.

The single most useful diagnostic is to plug in an external USB keyboard and test the same keys on it. If the external board works and the built-in one does not, the fault is in the laptop keyboard, its ribbon cable, or the connector on the motherboard. If both fail, the problem is software and no amount of hardware work will fix it.

The failure pattern narrows it further. A whole row or a contiguous block failing at once usually means a ribbon cable has worked loose, which is common on machines that flex or get carried a lot, and reseating one is often a far smaller job than a keyboard replacement. Scattered individual keys with no pattern usually means the membrane or worn scissor mechanisms under those specific caps.

Liquid damage has its own signature: keys near the spill fail immediately, then more fail over the following days as residue dries and corrodes contacts. If you are testing after a spill, retest a week later before declaring the machine recovered.

Mac and Apple keyboards

Apple keyboards differ enough from Windows boards that testing one against a Windows diagram is actively confusing, which is why this site draws them separately with their own legends.

The bottom row runs fn, control, option, command, space, command, option. So the bottom-left corner, where a Windows board has Ctrl, is fn on a MacBook — but not on a standalone Magic Keyboard, where fn moves into the navigation cluster above the home key and the corner is control. Drawing fn in both places would give one board two fn keys, which no Apple keyboard has.

Because browsers report physical positions, Apple modifiers arrive under names that look wrong at first: Command reports as MetaLeft or MetaRight, Option as AltLeft or AltRight. Nothing is broken; those are simply the reference-layout names for those positions.

The function row is the other common surprise. MacBook function keys default to their printed media roles — brightness, Mission Control, Spotlight, volume — rather than to F1 through F12, so pressing them usually sends a media command and lights nothing up here. Hold fn to send real function codes, or change the behaviour in System Settings under Keyboard.

Full-size Magic Keyboards add F13 through F19, which macOS mostly leaves unassigned, and a numeric keypad whose top-left key is Clear rather than Num Lock and which carries its own dedicated equals key.

Testing a keyboard for gaming

Gaming exposes keyboard faults that typing never will, because games hold several keys at once, press them very fast, and bind keys that ordinary use ignores.

Start with the keys games actually use and that this test makes it easy to skip: the full function row for quick-slots, both Shift keys, both Ctrl keys, both Alt keys, the space bar and the four arrows. On a compact board, check whichever keys your movement cluster occupies — WASD on QWERTY, ZQSD on AZERTY — with particular care, because those are the keys that will have taken the most wear.

Then test what this page cannot show on its own. Hold three or four keys together and watch whether they all stay lit, which is a rollover check. A board that drops the fourth key will drop it in the game too, usually at the worst moment, and the keys that conflict are the ones sharing a row or column in the keyboard matrix.

Finally, rule out software. A key that reports here but does nothing in a game is a keybinding problem, an overlay intercepting it, or a macro utility claiming it — not a hardware fault. The value of testing in a browser first is precisely that it separates those two cases in about ten seconds.

Who uses this keyboard tester

4 groups get the most out of an online keyboard test.

Privacy, browsers and compatibility

No keystroke you press on this keyboard tester leaves your device. Key events are read by JavaScript on the page, drawn to the screen, and discarded when the tab closes.

Frequently asked questions

A key does nothing when I press it. Is it broken?

Not necessarily, but it is the first thing worth checking. If a key stays grey here, the browser never received an event for it — which usually means the switch, the membrane or the cable is at fault. Before you conclude that, try the key in another application and, if you can, on another computer. Software layers such as remapping tools, gaming modes and accessibility settings can also swallow key presses before the browser sees them.

Why won't my Fn key light up?

Because it never reaches the browser. Fn is handled inside the keyboard's own controller: holding it changes what the other keys report rather than sending a signal of its own. The same is true of Touch ID on a MacBook and of most vendor-specific media and macro keys. We draw those caps so the layout is accurate, but we leave them out of the key count so the tester can still reach 100%.

My number pad types nothing.

Check Num Lock. With Num Lock off, the keypad sends navigation commands — Home, End, arrows — instead of digits, and the digit keys on screen will stay grey. Press Num Lock once and try again.

The on-screen keyboard doesn't match mine.

Two menus control the shape. Key Layout picks the character set — QWERTY, QWERTZ or AZERTY — and Form Factor picks the size, from a 60% mini board up to a 17.3-inch laptop. Set both to match your hardware. If your board sits between two form factors, choose the closest one; the tester only cares which keys report, not exactly where they sit.

Do you support QWERTZ and AZERTY layouts?

Yes. Pick QWERTY, QWERTZ or AZERTY from the Key Layout menu and every cap is relabelled to match. QWERTZ and AZERTY also switch the board to the ISO physical shape: a tall Enter spanning two rows, a shorter left Shift, and an extra key beside it. That is one more key than ANSI — 105 rather than 104 on a full-size board. Note that the tester reports physical key positions, so a key still lights up correctly even if your operating system is set to a different layout than the one shown.

Why did the page stop my browser shortcuts?

That is deliberate. To test keys such as Tab, F5 and F12 the page has to intercept them before the browser acts on them, so while the tester has focus most shortcuts are suppressed. Click outside the page or close the tab to get them back.

Are my keystrokes recorded?

No. Every key press is handled in your browser and used only to colour a key on screen. Nothing is transmitted to a server, written to storage, or shared with a third party. Reloading the page clears the whole test.

Several keys stop working when I hold others down.

That is key rollover, not a fault. Many membrane keyboards can only report a limited number of simultaneous presses, and certain combinations block each other — often called ghosting. Boards advertised as N-key rollover avoid it. You can see the effect here by holding three or four keys at once and watching which ones fail to light.

How do I test my keyboard online?

Choose the layout matching your keyboard from the dropdowns, then press every key. Each key that reaches your browser turns green and stays green, and the counter tracks how many of the layout's keys you have covered. Nothing is installed and nothing is uploaded.

Is this keyboard tester free?

Yes, completely, with no account, no trial and no limits. There are no ads, no analytics and no third-party scripts on the page.

Which keyboard layouts can I test?

QWERTY on the US ANSI shape, plus QWERTZ and AZERTY on the European ISO shape with its tall Enter, shortened left Shift and extra key. Across form factors that covers full size, tenkeyless, 75%, 65%, 60%, three laptop sizes and three Apple keyboards.

How many keys should my keyboard have?

A full-size US ANSI board has 104 and a European ISO board 105. Tenkeyless is 87 or 88. A 75% board has 84 physical keys, a 65% around 68, and a 60% has 61. Laptop counts vary by screen size: about 83 without a number pad and 100 with one.

Why does the on-screen board not match my keyboard exactly?

Check the Form Factor and Key Layout dropdowns first, since most mismatches are simply the wrong selection. Beyond that, manufacturers vary the bottom row and the right-hand column more than any other part of a board, so a compact keyboard may differ by a key or two from the reference layout without anything being wrong.

Can I test a wireless or Bluetooth keyboard?

Yes, exactly as you would a wired one. Bear in mind that intermittent failures which move to different keys on each pass usually indicate a weak connection or a low battery rather than a hardware fault. Connecting by cable, if the board supports it, rules the radio link out.

What does the Tested percentage mean?

It is the share of the selected layout's keys that have reported at least once. It reaches 100% only when every testable key on that layout has been pressed. Keys no browser can detect, such as Fn, are excluded from the total so that 100% stays reachable.

Does this work on a phone or tablet?

The page renders and scales correctly on any screen, which is useful for looking up a layout. Testing requires a physical keyboard, so on a phone or tablet you would need one paired over Bluetooth — and then it works exactly as it does on a desktop.

Test every key on your keyboard now

The keyboard tester is free, needs no download and no account, and works on any keyboard that sends standard key events — mechanical, membrane, laptop, wireless or Apple.

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