How to Reset Keyboard Shortcuts on Mac (System, App, and Third-Party)

“Reset keyboard shortcuts” sounds like one button. On a Mac it’s three separate systems, each stored in a different place:

1. macOS system shortcuts: Spotlight, Mission Control, screenshots, input sources, and so on
2. App Shortcuts overrides: menu shortcuts you’ve changed for one app or all apps
3. Third-party hotkeys: everything Raycast, Alfred, Karabiner, your window manager, and every other utility registers

Resetting one layer leaves the other two alone. Before you reset anything, it’s worth knowing which layer the problem is in. If you reset system shortcuts to fix a conflict with a launcher hotkey, you lose your customizations and the conflict is still there.

Before you reset: find out what’s actually wrong

If you’re resetting because a shortcut broke, run a scan first. HotkeyClash reads all three layers (running apps’ menus, Karabiner-Elements and skhd configs, and the macOS system shortcuts) and shows every combo claimed more than once. If the broken combo turns up next to a third-party app, you can rebind one hotkey instead of resetting everything. It’s free, open source, and takes about three seconds.

If you just want a clean slate, keep reading.

Layer 1: Reset macOS system shortcuts

The Settings way

1. Open System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts…
2. Select a category in the sidebar (Launchpad & Dock, Display, Mission Control, Keyboard, Input Sources, Screenshots, Presenter Overlay, Services, Spotlight, Accessibility, Function Keys, Modifier Keys…).
3. Click Restore Defaults at the bottom of the sheet.
4. Repeat for each category you’ve changed.

Modifier Keys is set per keyboard. If you swapped Caps Lock and Control on an external keyboard, choose that keyboard from the menu at the top before restoring.

The Terminal way (everything at once)

System shortcuts live in one preferences domain, com.apple.symbolichotkeys. Back it up before you change anything:

defaults export com.apple.symbolichotkeys ~/Desktop/symbolichotkeys-backup.plist

Then delete the customized entries so macOS falls back to its defaults:

defaults delete com.apple.symbolichotkeys AppleSymbolicHotKeys

Log out and back in (or restart). macOS loads these at login, so the change won’t show up until then. To undo:

defaults import com.apple.symbolichotkeys ~/Desktop/symbolichotkeys-backup.plist

and log out again.

Layer 2: Reset App Shortcuts overrides

App Shortcuts (Keyboard Shortcuts → App Shortcuts) let you change any menu item’s shortcut, either for “All Applications” or one specific app. They’re stored as NSUserKeyEquivalents, globally for “All Applications” and in each app’s own preferences domain otherwise.

The Settings way

Open Keyboard Shortcuts → App Shortcuts, select each entry, and click −. Relaunch the affected apps.

The Terminal way

To see what’s defined:

# "All Applications" overrides
defaults read -g NSUserKeyEquivalents

# One app, e.g. Safari
defaults read com.apple.Safari NSUserKeyEquivalents

To remove them:

defaults delete -g NSUserKeyEquivalents
defaults delete com.apple.Safari NSUserKeyEquivalents

Quit and reopen the app afterwards. Sandboxed apps keep their preferences inside their container, so if a defaults command says the domain doesn’t exist, use the Settings method for that app.

Layer 3: Reset third-party app hotkeys

There’s no system-wide reset here, because each app manages its own hotkeys. The general approach:

• Launchers (Raycast, Alfred, LaunchBar): each has its hotkeys in its own settings, and most offer a “reset” or “record again” per shortcut. Raycast keeps extension hotkeys under Settings → Extensions.
• Karabiner-Elements: your rules live in ~/.config/karabiner/karabiner.json. Rename it to get a clean slate (Karabiner will create a fresh default), or remove individual rules under Complex Modifications.
• skhd: comment out lines in ~/.config/skhd/skhdrc and restart skhd (skhd --restart-service).
• BetterTouchTool, Keyboard Maestro, Hammerspoon: disable individual triggers or macros instead of wiping the whole config. Those configs usually hold a lot of work.
• Everything else: open the app’s settings and look for a Shortcuts or Hotkeys tab.

If you’re not sure which apps have registered hotkeys, a HotkeyClash scan tags every binding by source (Menu bar, Config file, or System shortcut), so you know which settings to open.

After resetting: check what came back

A reset can create conflicts. Shortcuts you turned off on purpose, like Spotlight’s ⌘Space or the input source ⌃Space, come back on and start fighting the apps you’d moved those combos to. Run another scan afterwards and fix anything new in red or amber. The list of common conflicts covers the ones a reset usually brings back.