GitHub - serjster/KayZeer: Keyboard-driven screen navigation for macOS. KayZeer detects interactive UI elements on screen and overlays hint labels so you can click anything without touching the mouse.

4 min read Original article ↗

Keyboard-driven screen navigation for macOS. Click anything (almost) without touching the mouse.

KayZeer detects interactive UI elements on your screen and overlays hint labels on each one. Type the letters to click — like Vimium, but for your entire desktop. With the Enhanced pipeline, KayZeer also recognizes on-screen text via OCR, so you can type what you see to navigate.

Download

Get the latest release from the Releases page.

  1. Download the .dmg file
  2. Open it and drag KayZeer to Applications
  3. Launch KayZeer — it lives in your menu bar (no Dock icon)
  4. Grant Accessibility and Screen Recording permissions when prompted

How to Use

  1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Space to activate
  2. Hint labels appear on every detected UI element
  3. Type the hint letters to click that element
  4. Press Escape to cancel, Backspace to correct
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OCR Text Search

With the Enhanced pipeline, KayZeer detects on-screen text and overlays it directly on elements. You can navigate by typing what you see:

  1. Activate hints as usual
  2. Start typing any text visible on screen — a search bar appears showing matches
  3. Press / to toggle OCR-only mode — hides non-OCR labels for a cleaner search
  4. Use ↑/↓ arrow keys to cycle through matching OCR elements
  5. Press Enter to click the selected match
  6. Backspace to correct — the overlay stays active even with no matches

OCR matches are shown alongside regular hint labels. If multiple elements share the same text, they are automatically numbered (e.g. "Save1", "Save2") so each is uniquely identifiable. Exact hint label matches always auto-execute immediately.

Status Bar

A status bar is always visible at the top of the overlay, showing:

  • OCR — highlights when OCR-only mode is active (toggle with /)
  • LEFT / DBL / RIGHT / MOVE — shows the current click action

Vim-like Actions

KayZeer supports vim-inspired shortcuts during hint mode:

  • Repeat last action — press . during hints (or ⇧⌘. anytime) to re-click the last target
  • Command history — press , during hints (or ⇧⌘, anytime) to show recent targets as labelled hints without re-running detection
  • Click type toggles — press a modifier key once to toggle (no need to hold):
    • ⌃ (Control) — toggle between single click and double click
    • ⌥ (Option) — cycle through left click → right click → move cursor

All modifier-to-action mappings are configurable.

Mouse Mode

Press ⇧⌘; to enter Mouse Mode — full keyboard-driven mouse control without needing to detect UI elements first.

Key Action
h j k l Move cursor (left, down, up, right)
Shift + move Fast movement (4x speed)
u Left click (double-tap for double-click)
u + hold + move Drag / select text
i Middle click
o Right click (hold + move to drag)
y / n Scroll up / down
Esc Exit mouse mode

A floating key legend is displayed while mouse mode is active. The hotkey is configurable.

Configuration

Click the menu bar icon and select Configure... to customize:

Setting Description Default
Activation shortcut Key combo to trigger hints Ctrl+Shift+Space
Character set Characters used for hint labels asdfjkl;
Distribution How labels are spatially assigned (Linear, Random, Hilbert, Grid, etc.) Linear
Monitor Prefixes First character selects a monitor, rest select within it On
Hint Style Shrink (hide typed chars) or Gray out (dim typed chars) Shrink
Repeat Hotkey Shortcut to repeat last action ⇧⌘.
History Hotkey Shortcut to open command history ⇧⌘,
Mouse Mode Hotkey Shortcut to toggle mouse mode ⇧⌘;
Single/Double toggle Modifier to toggle between single and double click ⌃ (Control)
Right/Move cycle Modifier to cycle through left click, right click, and move cursor ⌥ (Option)
History incl. manual Include manual points in the history overlay On
Detection Pipeline Basic (fast, no OCR) or Enhanced (with OCR text detection) Enhanced (with OCR)
OCR elements How OCR elements are displayed: Hint labels or Show detected text Show detected text

Configuration

Manual Click Points

Add persistent click points via Manage Points in the configuration window. These are always available alongside auto-detected elements and use the last character in your character set as a prefix.

  • Drag point markers to reposition them
  • Delete points with the ✕ button on each marker
  • Points are listed in the configuration window for easy management

Requirements

  • macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later
  • Accessibility permission (for keyboard monitoring and click simulation)
  • Screen Recording permission (for UI element detection)

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for release history.

License

KayZeer is free to use. See LICENSE for details.

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