Make the keyboard repeat rate on Mac OSX even faster

Even when setting the keyboard repeat rate to its fastest in the Mac OSX system preferences the rate the keyboard repeats is still not fast enough. The speed is set using an integer value, the lowest it can be set from the system preferences is 2 but it can be set to 0 or 1 from the terminal, as follows:

defaults write -g InitialKeyRepeat -int 10 # normal minimum is 15 (225 ms)
defaults write -g KeyRepeat -int 1 # normal minimum is 2 (30 ms)

Sometimes a side effect of setting this is that an IOS feature is turned on that allows you to select characters from different character sets rather than repeating the key, this can be fixed with the following command if you do not want this:

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool false

The changes will be applied next time you login.

The above changes will need to be re-applied after an OSX upgrade.

Last updated: 01/10/2017