Online keyboard test and key check
Keyboard Test
Press a key and watch it light up the moment your browser receives it — single keys, combinations and long-press repeat. One page covers the keyboard test, tester and key check, and shows honestly what a browser can and cannot see.
Click this keyboard, then press keys — each key lights up the moment the browser receives it.
Fn, media and volume keys, and operating-system or browser shortcuts may never reach this page. A dark key means no event arrived — not that the key is broken. What this test cannot see
How to use
Testing your keyboard in three steps
Reading the colours
Green means held, amber means tested
The keyboard lights up only from real key events delivered by the browser — the picture itself is never clickable, and keys the browser does not receive cannot light up.
- Green (pressed): the key is held down right now.
- Amber (tested): the browser received this key at least once during this pass.
- Dark: no event received — either the key was not pressed, or something between the keyboard and the browser swallowed it.
- Auto-repeat: holding a key makes the operating system resend it; the counter shows how many repeats the browser received.
Honest limits
What a browser-based keyboard test can and cannot see
This is the whole capability boundary, in one place. Everything on the left is observable from a web page; everything on the right is not, no matter which keyboard tester you use.
The browser can report
- Printable keys
- Letters, digits and punctuation arrive as both a key value and a physical code.
- Modifiers, including the side
- Left and right Shift, Ctrl, Alt and Meta are distinguishable through the key location.
- Navigation and editing keys
- Arrows, Home, End, Page Up, Page Down, Insert and Delete are reported normally.
- Function keys F1–F12
- Delivered as ordinary keys as long as the operating system does not claim the press first.
- Numpad keys
- They have their own codes, so Num Lock and the numpad cluster can be checked separately.
- Key release and auto-repeat
- keyup events and auto-repeat events are both visible while the test area keeps focus; the repeat delay and rate are the operating system's settings, not the keyboard's.
- Order and delivery timing
- The sequence of events and when the browser delivered them are measurable.
The browser cannot report
- Fn
- Usually handled inside the keyboard firmware, so no event ever reaches the page.
- Media, volume and brightness keys
- Frequently consumed by the operating system or not forwarded to the browser at all.
- Operating-system shortcuts
- Combinations such as Cmd/Alt+Tab, Win+L or Ctrl+Alt+Del are taken before any page sees them.
- Browser shortcuts
- Ctrl/Cmd+T, W, N, L, Ctrl+Tab or F11 act on the browser and never reach the test area.
- Anything typed while unfocused
- Keys pressed after the page loses focus go elsewhere; the held state is cleared instead of guessed.
- Key release while ⌘ is held (macOS)
- macOS sends no keyup for other keys while Command is down, so once ⌘ is released this page clears those keys instead of showing them stuck.
- Hardware behaviour
- Ghosting, key blocking, switch chatter, actuation force and polling rate cannot be attributed from a page: it only sees which events arrived, not why.
- A verdict about your keyboard
- A key that stays dark means “no event received”, not “this key is broken”.
When a key stays dark, the press was filtered out somewhere on the way — by the keyboard firmware, the operating system, or the browser. A web page cannot tell which one did it, so this tool gives you observations, not a hardware diagnosis.
While the test area has focus it suppresses default actions such as page scrolling, so keys behave predictably; Tab keeps moving focus and system shortcut combinations (Ctrl/Cmd/Alt) keep their normal behaviour.
Questions
Keyboard test FAQ
What does this keyboard test actually check?
It shows which key events your browser receives while the test area has focus. A key lights up green while held and stays amber once released, so you can confirm that a key, modifier or combination is being delivered to the page. It observes what the browser sees — it does not diagnose hardware faults inside the keyboard itself.
Is a keyboard test the same as a keyboard check?
In practice yes, and this one page covers both: keyboard test, keyboard tester, keyboard check, keyboard keys test and online keyboard test all describe the same job — pressing keys and seeing what arrives. There is no separate page per wording, because splitting one task across near-identical URLs helps nobody.
How do I test my keyboard?
Click the keyboard picture once to focus it, then press keys on your real keyboard. Each key lights up the moment the browser receives it. Hold several keys to see the combination under “Combo received now”, hold one key down to watch the auto-repeat counter, and use “Clear tested keys” to start a fresh pass.
Why does a key stay dark when I press it?
Because the browser never received that key press. Common causes: the Fn key and some media keys are handled by the keyboard or operating system before the browser, system-wide and browser shortcuts take priority, or the page lost focus — click the keyboard area again. A dark key honestly means “no event seen”, not a pass or fail verdict.
Can this find every keyboard problem?
No, and no web page can. This test cannot see inside the key matrix (ghosting or key blocking), cannot tell switch chatter from a deliberate double press, cannot measure actuation force, polling rate or the keyboard's own latency, and cannot inspect a key the operating system has already intercepted. Those need diagnostics that run below the browser. What you get here is a reliable record of which presses reached the page.
Which keyboard layouts are supported?
The tester draws a US (ANSI), UK (ISO) and German (ISO) layout. The key positions and the `code` values browsers report are physical, so most Latin keyboards map cleanly onto one of these. Labels are drawn for orientation — what lights up is driven by the events your browser sends, not by the picture, so switching layout never changes which key is recorded.
Can I test keyboard combinations and shortcuts?
Yes — hold Shift, Ctrl, Alt or ⌘/Win together with other keys and watch the “Combo received now” line update with each event the browser delivers. Some system-reserved combinations (like OS or browser shortcuts) never reach the page; those keys keep their normal behaviour instead. One macOS quirk is handled for you: while ⌘ is held, macOS sends no release event for the other keys, so when you let go of ⌘ this page clears them rather than leaving them lit as if stuck.
Does this keyboard tester work on phones and tablets?
Touch screens without a physical keyboard produce no key events, so the tester shows a notice instead of fake results. Tablets and phones with an attached keyboard can be tested normally — tap the keyboard area first so it has focus.
Is what I type sent anywhere?
Your test runs locally and there is no account or server-side tool storage. Google Analytics receives page views. Microsoft Clarity records a session with clicks, scrolling and mouse movement; strict masking hides text such as the keys shown on screen.
