Alexander Deplov

How to Add Media Keys to a Vintage Apple Keyboard with macOS hidutil

October 15, 2026 • Mastodon • RSS

I use a vintage Apple Keyboard A1048 every day because I like how it feels. The one thing I miss is a set of dedicated media keys. When this keyboard was released, Apple keyboards did not have dedicated media keys.

Vintage white Apple Keyboard A1048 on a wooden desk

My Apple Keyboard A1048, with the F7, F8, and F9 keys mapped to media controls.

I wanted F7, F8, and F9 to control the previous track, play or pause, and the next track, just as they do on my modern MacBook. I also wanted to avoid installing another utility just for this small change.

Karabiner-Elements is a popular way to customize keyboard behavior, but macOS already includes a small utility for this: hidutil. I used it to map the keys directly:

Here is the complete LaunchAgent property list, stored at ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.hidutil.plist:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
 "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>com.user.hidutil</string>

  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>/usr/bin/hidutil</string>
    <string>property</string>
    <string>--set</string>
    <string>{"UserKeyMapping":[{"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc":0x000700000040,"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst":0x000C000000B6},{"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc":0x000700000041,"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst":0x000C000000CD},{"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingSrc":0x000700000042,"HIDKeyboardModifierMappingDst":0x000C000000B5}]}</string>
  </array>

  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

After saving the file, load it into your current login session with:

launchctl bootstrap gui/$(id -u) ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.user.hidutil.plist

The RunAtLoad setting makes the LaunchAgent run the mapping command when it loads at login. The remapping works great for my setup, and I did not need to install an extra keyboard utility.

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