Limelight
Show your keystrokes on screen on a Mac
If you make tutorials or screencasts, viewers constantly wonder "what did you just press?" Limelight shows the keys you press on screen, live, with one hotkey — so every shortcut is visible.
macOS has no built-in way to display the keys you press. For a tutorial that teaches shortcuts, that is a real problem: the audience sees a result but never the keystroke that caused it. They rewind, guess, or give up.
Limelight fixes this. Press ⌃⌥2 and every shortcut you hit — ⌘C, ⌘⇧P, ⌥↑ — appears as a clean, large badge at the bottom of your screen, then fades. It runs as a lightweight menu-bar app and works on top of any application, so it pairs with QuickTime, OBS, Screen Studio, Zoom, anything.
To keep recordings clean, it only shows shortcut combinations (anything with ⌘/⌥/⌃) and special keys — not your normal typing — so you can teach shortcuts without exposing what you write.
Why Limelight
- ▸One global hotkey (⌃⌥2) toggles the on-screen keystroke display
- ▸Shows shortcuts and special keys, hides normal typing — clean recordings
- ▸Works over any app, then records and exports the finished video itself
- ▸Native SwiftUI, Apple-notarized, runs in the menu bar
Cursor spotlight free · from $2.99/mo or $34 lifetime · macOS 14+
Or get Pro — from $2.99/mo · See how it works →
free to start, then go Pro from $2.99/mo or a $34 one-time lifetime license. macOS 14+, notarized by Apple.
FAQ
- Does macOS show keystrokes on screen by default?
- No. macOS has no built-in keystroke display. Limelight adds it as a global hotkey overlay and bakes it right into the video it records.
- Will it show everything I type?
- No — it shows shortcut combinations and special keys, not normal typing, to keep your recordings clean.
- Does it record my screen?
- Yes. Limelight is a full macOS screen recorder: it records and exports a finished video, auto-zooming on clicks and smoothing the cursor, with your keystrokes shown right on screen — no QuickTime, OBS, or Screen Studio needed.