Mini Keyboard: Type Any Script
Any language, as you type it
Only for Mac
Free
Mac
Mini Keyboard turns the iPhone already in your hand into a keyboard for this Mac.
Type on your phone and the characters appear on your Mac as you type them — not when you press Enter, not after a Send button. That difference matters most when the script you need is not printed on your keycaps: Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Russian, Hindi, Greek, Hebrew, emoji. Your iPhone has a first-class keyboard for every one of them. This app lets your Mac borrow it.
WHAT IT DOES
• Lives in your menu bar, waiting to be typed into. No Dock icon and no window in your way.
• Receives text from a paired iPhone and types it into whichever app is frontmost — your editor, your browser, your chat window.
• Handles the keys a text box does not: Command, Control, Option and Shift chords, plus Tab, Esc, Return, Delete and the arrow keys. Shortcuts arrive as real shortcuts, resolved through the keyboard layout you actually use, so Command-Q is where your layout puts it rather than where a US layout would.
• Moves the pointer, too. The iPhone app has a trackpad you can pull up over the keys — click, right-click, two-finger scroll, drag — so you can place the caret before you type without reaching for the mouse. There are no media or playback keys, and nothing is mirrored to the phone: this is an input device, not a remote desktop.
• Always tells you what is connected. One phone at a time, named in the popover, with the last keystroke echoed back and a Disconnect button next to it.
PAIRING AND PRIVACY
• Your Mac shows a QR code carrying a 160-bit secret. Your iPhone scans it once and remembers it. If you would rather not point a camera at your own screen, the same code can be typed.
• The connection is encrypted with TLS-PSK and is bound to this specific Mac, so a code scanned here cannot be replayed against a different machine.
• Everything stays on your local Wi-Fi, and both devices have to be on the same network. It does not work over the internet or over cellular, because there is no server to relay through.
• No account, no cloud, no ads, no subscription, and no data collection. Nothing you type is stored, logged, or sent anywhere except the Mac you paired with.
ABOUT THE PERMISSION
macOS files "permission to send key presses" under Privacy & Security › Accessibility, which is a confusing place to find a keyboard. Apple shows two different permissions in that one pane. Mini Keyboard asks only for the one that sends key presses and moves the pointer. It does not read your screen, and it does not record what you type. The app explains this in plain language the first time you open it.
YOU NEED BOTH HALVES
This is the Mac half. The iPhone half is a separate free download, also called Mini Keyboard, on the iPhone App Store. Both devices need to be on the same Wi-Fi network.
WHAT IS NEW IN 2.0
Version 2.0 is a complete rebuild for modern macOS, ten years after the last one. Text is now sent as Unicode rather than as key codes, which is what makes real-time typing in non-Latin scripts possible at all. Pairing moved from a shared password to a scanned 160-bit code over an encrypted connection. And the app is sandboxed and ships entirely through the Mac App Store — the old external download, and the website this listing used to point at, are gone for good.
Ratings & Reviews
- This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
The Mac half of Mini Keyboard has not been updated since 2016, and for most of those ten years this listing opened by telling you the app would not work unless you downloaded it from a website instead. That was our mistake, the website is long gone, and 2.0 fixes both.
WHAT CHANGED
• The app is sandboxed and ships entirely through the Mac App Store. There is nothing to download from anywhere else, ever again.
• The 2016 version was built on the belief that a sandboxed app cannot send key presses to other apps. It can. macOS has a separate permission for exactly that, and this app asks for that one and nothing more — it cannot read your screen, and it does not record what you type.
• Text arrives as Unicode instead of key codes. That is the change that makes real-time typing in Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Russian, Hindi and emoji possible at all.
• Pairing is a scanned QR code carrying a 160-bit secret over an encrypted, Mac-bound connection, replacing the shared password in Preferences.
• Menu bar only — no Dock icon, no window in your way.
• New: your paired iPhone can move the pointer as well as type. Pull up the trackpad on the phone to click, right-click, scroll and drag, over the same connection and the same permission.
Everything still stays on your local Wi-Fi. No account, no server, no ads, no subscription, and nothing you type is stored or logged.
The developer, Moaath Othman, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
- Identifiers
- Diagnostics
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Moaath Othman
- Size
- 926.1 KB
- Category
- Utilities
- Compatibility
Requires macOS 14.0 or later.
- Mac
Requires macOS 14.0 or later.
- Mac
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
4+
- 4+
- Copyright
- © 2026 Moath Othman
