Here’s how to get back the Escape button on MacBook Pro without having to spend up to $ 3,000

With the Escape button, you can exit the current window / text input field / frame. You can use it to skip some dialogs, or even force an unresponsive application to end. And if you often use the Vim text editor, you probably know that it relies on the Escape button quite a lot. So why did Apple remove the physical Escape button on the MacBook Pro when introducing the Touch Bar?

Apple made that decision in the cry of many users in 2016. Recently, when the 16-inch MacBook Pro launched, the Escape button was back. But if the previous MacBook Pro you're using is still too good, will you accept spending nearly $ 3,000 just to get a new machine with the Escape button? No, definitely not. Instead, you can reuse the Caps Lock button, turning it into an Escape button.

Restore Escape button on MacBook Pro

What you are going to do is remap the Caps Lock button which is useless and turn it into an Escape button. In many cases, the Escape button in place of the Caps Lock button is actually much more logical than the default position in the upper left corner. It will be easier to reach this button. If you are using any recently released version of macOS, this will probably be the easiest tutorial to follow. According to a section discussed on Stack Overflow, this solution works from macOS 10.12.1 and later.

How to remap the Caps Lock button to Escape

Just open the System Preferences app on the Mac and select Keyboard. Then select the Modifier Keys button in the lower right corner of the window, you will see the following:

This is where you can remap buttons like Caps Lock, Control, Option and Command. This method can remap external keyboards, and if you use a Windows-compatible keyboard, you can go here to swap the Option and Command buttons.

Bye, Caps Lock

All you need to do is click on the Caps Lock button in the list, select Escape from the drop-down list. You can choose a different button if you want, but remember that if the keyboard has the same 2 buttons on the left and right, you cannot select each button here.

If you're using macOS version earlier than 10.12.1, there's nothing you need to do, because your MacBook already has an Escape button. Even Apple acknowledges that users with the old-style Touch Bar may want to bring the Escape button back in their user support documents.

Reference: CultofMac