ShortcutDetective
ShortcutDetective is a free, lightweight utility for macOS that helps users identify which process or application is intercepting a keyboard shortcut or modifier combination. It runs in the background and logs keyboard events, making it useful for troubleshooting conflicts between applications, finding which app has claimed a particular key binding, and debugging why expected keyboard shortcuts are not working. It is typically used by developers, power users, and system administrators investigating keyboard event handling and global hotkey conflicts.
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1 suggestionShortcutDetective has not been updated since its last release in 2015 (version 1.0) and exists only in a 32/64-bit Intel binary form with no native Apple Silicon build. The app currently runs under Rosetta 2 on M-series Macs, and community reports confirm it experiences occasional crashes on Apple Silicon Macs. Since Apple is removing Rosetta 2 in macOS 28 (September 2028), ShortcutDetective will stop running entirely on that release. There is no clear successor tool that provides identical keyboard-interception logging, but modern macOS development tools (Xcode's Instruments with the System Trace template, and command-line utilities like `log stream` combined with `ioreg`) offer ways to trace keyboard events. If you rely on ShortcutDetective, consider documenting your current workflow so you can transition to macOS native debugging tools before September 2028. Alternatively, contact the developer (Irradiated Software) to ask if a native Apple Silicon update is planned, though the lack of updates since 2015 suggests the project may be dormant.
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