Make your Macfeel like something.
A drawer of fidget toys and real mechanical keyboard sounds, sitting quietly in your menu bar.
Turn a knob while you think. Click something while you wait. Type on switches your laptop will never have.
- Knobs, sliders, and clickers
- Sampled from real switches
- Free and open source
What it is
A drawer of fidget toys for your Mac
Tactus is a small macOS app for hands that need something to do. It keeps a set of tactile toys and a set of real mechanical keyboard sounds one click away, so the fidgeting that would otherwise go into a pen or a desk edge has somewhere to land.
Knobs, sliders, and clickers
Turn a weighted knob while you think through a problem. Drag a slider back and forth. Click a toggle again and again because it feels good. Each toy has its own travel and resistance, so your hand can tell them apart without looking.
Sampled from real switches
The typing sounds are recordings of actual mechanical keyboard switches, not synthesised clicks. Presses and releases are separate samples, so a burst of typing has the uneven rhythm of the real thing instead of one clip on a loop.
Lives in your menu bar
Tactus opens from a single menu bar icon, right where your pointer already is. No window to arrange, no project to set up. Open the drawer, use it for ten seconds, get back to work.
Free, open source, 5 MB
The whole app is a 5 MB download for macOS 13 Ventura or later. No account, no subscription, no trial that expires. The source is open if you want to read it or build on it.
Getting started
Running in about a minute
Download the app
Grab the disk image and drag Tactus into your Applications folder. It is about 5 MB and needs macOS 13 Ventura or later.
Open it from the menu bar
Tactus adds one icon to the menu bar. Click it whenever you want the drawer — there is nothing to configure before it works.
Pick something to fidget with
A knob to turn, a slider to drag, a clicker to click, or the keyboard if you want the sound of real switches under your typing.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
- Is Tactus free?
- Yes. Tactus is free and open source. There is no trial period, no subscription, and no account to create — download it and it works.
- What do I need to run Tactus?
- A Mac running macOS 13 Ventura or later. The download is around 5 MB, so it installs in seconds.
- What does Tactus actually do?
- It puts a drawer of fidget toys — knobs, sliders, and clickers — plus a set of mechanical keyboard sounds into your menu bar. Click the icon, use a toy for a few seconds, and carry on with what you were doing.
- Where do the keyboard sounds come from?
- They are sampled from real mechanical keyboard switches rather than generated in software. Key presses and key releases use separate recordings, which is what stops fast typing from sounding like the same click repeated.
- Can I hear the keyboard sounds before I download it?
- Yes. The 3D keyboard at the top of this page plays the same samples the app uses — click any keycap to hear one. It needs a browser with WebGL and audio enabled.
- Why would I want a fidget toy on my Mac?
- For the same reason people click pens in meetings or turn a knob that does not do anything. Some hands settle when they have a small repetitive thing to do, and that makes it easier to sit with a problem. Tactus gives that somewhere to go without leaving the keyboard.