Overlay of commands / shortcuts / keys pressed – Screencast Mode · Issue #981 · microsoft/PowerToys · GitHub
Posted by jpluimers on 2025/07/23
This is a reminder to check if this below late 2019 proposal inspired by Visual Studio Code Screencast mode¹ already made it: [Wayback/Archive] Overlay of commands / shortcuts / keys pressed – Screencast Mode · Issue #981 · microsoft/PowerToys · GitHub which mentions some tools that can already do this
Here is a list of FOSS apps that currently do this (sorted by stars):
- github.com/Code52/carnac – Unmaintained, does not work on most applications
- github.com/Phaiax/Key-n-Stroke
- github.com/marius-sucan/KeyPress-OSD – Commercial version available
- https://github.com/Jagailo/YetAnotherKeyDisplayer
- mulaRahul/keyviz – Quite new and looks good
To add to this list (unsorted):
- github.com/nutti/Screencast-Keys – Blender addon
- github.com/AxDSan/KeyPose – free alternative to MousePosé for Windows
- github.com/keycastr/keycastr – macOS only
In the meantime, I am using Key-n-Stroke as it is the only still supported one I found that is easily turned off/on when typing sensitive content like passwords:
- [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – Phaiax/Key-n-Stroke: I’m an app and show all the letters you type and keyboard shortcuts you use as well as mouse clicks.
- [Wayback/Archive] GitHub – Code52/carnac: A utility to give some insight into how you use your keyboard, apparently unmaintained, does support password mode:
Enabling silent modeIf you want to stopCarnacfrom recording certain key strokes, you can enter silent mode by pressingCtrl+Alt+P. To exit silent mode you simply pressCtrl+Alt+Pagain.
¹ Visually Studio release [Wayback/Archive] January 2019 (version 1.31) screencast mode:
vscode screencast demo video
--jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 
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