Make Home & End keys behave like Windows on Mac OS X

I’ve been using Mac OS X daily since 2001 when I purchased my Titanium PowerBook and I still can’t get used the home and end key behavior.

If, like me, you want Home to send you to the start of the line and not to the top of the document then create a file called DefaultKeyBinding.dict in your ~/Library/KeyBindings folder (might need to create that folder too) with the following contents:

{
  "\UF729"  = moveToBeginningOfParagraph:; // home
  "\UF72B"  = moveToEndOfParagraph:; // end
  "$\UF729" = moveToBeginningOfParagraphAndModifySelection:; // shift-home
  "$\UF72B" = moveToEndOfParagraphAndModifySelection:; // shift-end
  "^\UF729" = moveToBeginningOfDocument:; // ctrl-home
  "^\UF72B" = moveToEndOfDocument:; // ctrl-end
  "^$\UF729" = moveToBeginningOfDocumentAndModifySelection:; // ctrl-shift-home
  "^$\UF72B" = moveToEndOfDocumentAndModifySelection:; // ctrl-shift-end
}

This remapping does the following in most Mac apps including Chrome (some apps do their own key handling):

  • Home and End will go to start and end of line
  • ShiftHome and ShiftEnd will select to start and end of line
  • CtrlHome and CtrlEnd will go to start and end of document
  • ShiftCtrlHome and ShiftCtrlEnd will select to start and end of document

Note that you will need to reboot after creating this file for it to take effect.

If you have a PC keyboard with LED back-lighting and would like the scroll-lock, num-lock or caps-lock LEDs on when using your Mac check out my free SetLEDs for Mac