Keyviz is a free and open-source keypress visualizer that displays keystrokes and mouse actions in real-time on your screen. Designed for presenters, educators, and content creators, it provides an intuitive way to show every input during screen shares, making tutorials and demonstrations more effective. Its core value lies in helping audiences see exactly what the person is typing or clicking, eliminating the guesswork often associated with watching a static screen. By visualizing each keypress as it happens, Keyviz transforms ordinary screen recordings into engaging, informative experiences that keep viewers focused on the action instead of wondering what shortcut was used. The tool is fully community-driven, with its source code openly available on GitHub where it has garnered over 9,000 stars.
One common challenge during screen sharing is that viewers cannot see the presenter's keyboard or mouse movements, leading to confusion especially when complex shortcuts are involved. Tutorials often lose clarity because learners miss crucial steps or cannot identify which key combos were pressed. Keyviz solves this by visualizing every keystroke and mouse action as an overlay, so viewers see exactly what is being pressed or clicked in real-time. This direct visual feedback eliminates misunderstandings and makes even rapid input sequences easy to follow. By bridging the gap between what the user does and what the audience perceives, the tool significantly improves engagement and comprehension, making it invaluable for anyone who wants to communicate their actions clearly.
Keyviz offers endless customization options to match any visual style. Users can tweak keycap style, size, color, border, and icon, allowing the overlay to blend seamlessly with any screen recording or presentation theme. The customization panel provides sliders for size, dropdowns for font and icon, color pickers, and border thickness controls. Users can even import custom icons or use system emojis to represent modifier keys like Command, Option, or Control. This level of granularity is rare in free tools and makes Keyviz adaptable to any recording environment. By adjusting almost every visual element, presenters can maintain brand consistency or optimize readability for different audiences, ensuring the overlay enhances rather than distracts from the content.
Another powerful aspect of Keyviz is its input filtering capability. Users can define hotkeys or per-key filters to display only the shortcuts that matter during a presentation, preventing irrelevant keystrokes from cluttering the screen. For example, a developer might filter to show only Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V during a copy-paste demo, ignoring navigation keys. Additionally, Keyviz takes privacy seriously: all keystrokes are processed locally and never sent over the internet. This local-only processing ensures sensitive information remains secure, making the tool suitable for enterprise demos or confidential training sessions where data cannot leave the machine. Together, filtering and privacy give users full control over what is shown and absolute peace of mind about their data security.
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Keyviz goes beyond keystrokes by also visualizing mouse clicks and scroll wheel movements alongside the cursor. Mouse visualization includes left-click, right-click, and middle-click indicators, each customizable with colors or animation styles. Scroll wheel movements appear as a directional indicator showing up/down scrolling. The tool also includes preset entry and exit animations for inputs, allowing keystrokes and clicks to appear and disappear with smooth visual effects like fade, slide, or bounce. Users can select which animations to use, tailoring the experience to their presentation style. The combination of mouse tracking and animated input display provides a comprehensive view of all user interactions on screen, making even rapid actions easy to follow.
Keyviz operates as a lightweight overlay that captures keyboard and mouse events in real-time. Upon downloading and installing, users can launch the application and immediately start seeing keypress overlays. The application sits in the system tray and can be configured via a settings panel where users choose which inputs to visualize, adjust overlay position, scale, and opacity. The real-time rendering is performed with minimal latency, ensuring no delay between action and visualization. Its open-source nature means the code is publicly available on GitHub, fostering community contributions and transparency. With support for both Windows and macOS, the tool integrates smoothly into any existing workflow without heavy system requirements or complex setup procedures.
Concrete use cases for Keyviz include recording tutorial videos where the instructor wants to show every step without needing a separate camera pointed at the keyboard. Live streamers can use it during coding sessions to highlight hotkeys and mouse gestures, increasing audience interaction and understanding. In corporate training, presenters can display shortcuts during software walkthroughs to speed up learning. The tool also aids accessibility: users with visual impairments can benefit from large, clearly labeled keycap overlays. In each scenario, the outcome is higher engagement, fewer repeated questions, and a more polished professional presentation. Viewers stay focused on the content rather than trying to decipher invisible inputs, making the learning process smoother and more enjoyable.
Keyviz is targeted at educators creating online courses, streamers on platforms like Twitch and YouTube, developers recording code walkthroughs, technical trainers, and anyone who shares their screen and wants to improve audience clarity. The tool runs on Windows and macOS, with version 2.1.1-beta as the latest release. It is completely free to download and use with no restrictions. For users who need extra features, the Pro version costs $9 and includes three additional animations and styles, three animated mouse indicators, and the ability to display captions for key combinations. Overall, Keyviz stands out as a keypress visualizer that balances simplicity with deep customization, making it an essential tool for effective screen sharing and communication of keyboard-driven workflows.
Educators creating instructional videos, live streamers on Twitch and YouTube, developers recording code walkthroughs, technical trainers conducting remote workshops, content producers recording screen casts, and accessibility advocates needing clear visual input indicators. Keyviz is particularly useful for those who demonstrate keyboard-driven workflows and need to highlight shortcuts without obscuring the main content, making it a valuable tool for anyone who shares their screen professionally.