What does the Windows key do on a Mac?

macOS maps it to Command. Pressing it with C, V, X, S, Z or T gives you copy, paste, cut, save, undo and new tab, exactly as Ctrl does on Windows. On its own it does nothing — unlike Windows, where it opens the Start menu.

Why are Alt and Command in the wrong place on my PC keyboard?

Because the physical order differs. A PC keyboard runs Ctrl, Windows, Alt from the left. A Mac keyboard runs Control, Option, Command. macOS maps Windows to Command and Alt to Option, so the two land in each other's positions. Your thumb reaches for Command and finds Option.

How do I swap the Alt and Command keys on a Mac?

System Settings, then Keyboard, then the Keyboard Shortcuts button, then Modifier Keys. Choose your PC keyboard from the dropdown at the top — this is the important part, as the setting is saved per keyboard — then set Option to Command and Command to Option. Your Mac's built-in keyboard is unaffected.

Does the Print Screen key work on a Mac?

macOS sees it as F13, and nothing is bound to F13 by default, so it does nothing. Switchover binds F13 to a full-screen capture that goes straight to the clipboard, which is what Print Screen does on Windows.

What does the Menu key do on a Mac?

Nothing. macOS has no equivalent binding, so the context-menu key between the right Alt and right Ctrl is inert. Control and click, or a two-finger click, opens the context menu instead.

30 September 2026 · 5 minute read

The Windows key on a Mac: what it does, and how to stop Alt and Command being swapped

You plug your old PC keyboard into a Mac, start typing, and something is subtly wrong. Copy and paste work, so the keyboard is clearly fine. But your thumb keeps landing on the wrong key, and every third shortcut comes out as something you did not want. Here is exactly what macOS does with those keys, and the 30-second fix for the part that actually hurts.

What each PC key becomes

PC key	macOS treats it as	Notes
Windows (⊞)	Command (⌘)	Your main shortcut key now. Does nothing on its own.
Alt	Option (⌥)	Accents and alternate characters, not menus.
Ctrl	Control (⌃)	Stays Control — but it is not the shortcut key any more.
Print Screen	F13	Unbound by default, so nothing happens.
Menu key	—	Nothing at all.
Scroll Lock / Pause	F14 / F15	Unbound.
Backspace	Delete	Deletes backwards. Forward delete is Fn+Delete.

The first row is the one that catches everyone. On Windows the shortcut key sits at the bottom-left corner and you hit it with the side of your thumb. On macOS that corner key is Control, which does almost nothing, and the real shortcut key has moved one position inwards.

The actual problem: they are physically swapped

Look at the two layouts side by side, reading outwards from the space bar:

	Position 1	Position 2	Position 3
PC keyboard	Ctrl	Windows	Alt
Mac keyboard	Control	Option	Command

Position 2 on a PC is the Windows key, which macOS makes Command. Position 2 on a Mac is Option. Position 3 on a PC is Alt, which macOS makes Option. Position 3 on a Mac is Command.

So the two most-used modifiers land in each other's spots. Muscle memory built on a Mac keyboard fails on a PC keyboard and the other way round, and no amount of practice fixes it because the keys really are in the wrong order.

The fix, in about 30 seconds

Open System Settings.
Go to Keyboard.
Click Keyboard Shortcuts… near the bottom.
Choose Modifier Keys in the sidebar.
Pick your PC keyboard from the dropdown at the top. This matters more than anything else on this page — the setting is stored per keyboard, so choosing the wrong one will scramble your MacBook's built-in keys instead.
Set Option (⌥) to Command, and Command (⌘) to Option.
Click Done.

Now the key in position 3 — the one labelled Alt, where your thumb already goes — is Command. Every Ctrl shortcut you know works from the same physical position it did on Windows.

Decide this once and stick with it. If you use both a MacBook keyboard and an external PC keyboard through the day, swapping on one and not the other trades a constant small annoyance for an occasional large one. Most people are happier leaving both alone and letting the Mac layout win.

What the Windows key still will not do

Remapping fixes the position. It does not bring back the shortcuts. On Windows the ⊞ key is a launcher in its own right: ⊞+E opens Explorer, ⊞+D shows the desktop, ⊞+L locks, ⊞+V opens clipboard history, ⊞+Shift+S snips. On macOS, Command plus those letters means something else entirely, or nothing.

There is no way to recover those with Modifier Keys, because the problem is not which physical key you press — it is that macOS has no command bound to the combination at all.

Putting the Windows key shortcuts back

Switchover binds the ones that have no Mac equivalent to ⌃+⌥ combinations, which macOS leaves free:

On Windows	With Switchover	What happens
⊞+E	`⌃`+`⌥`+`E`	A new Finder window, from any app
⊞+D	`⌃`+`⌥`+`D`	Show Desktop
⊞+L	`⌃`+`⌥`+`L`	Lock the screen
⊞+Tab	`⌃`+`⌥`+`Tab`	Mission Control
⊞+Shift+S	`⌃`+`⌥`+`⇧`+`S`	Snip a region to the clipboard
Print Screen	`Print Screen`	Whole screen to the clipboard — the F13 signal your PC keyboard already sends
⊞+V	`⌘`+`⇧`+`V`	Clipboard history

Print Screen is the neat one: because macOS already reads that key as F13, and nothing else claims F13, the key on your existing keyboard simply starts working. Nothing to remap.

Every shortcut above can be changed, and each feature has its own on/off switch, so you can keep the two or three you actually miss and leave the rest alone.

The Windows keys, working on a Mac. Watch on YouTube

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Copyright © 2026 Thanujan Sathiyamoorthy. All rights reserved. Switchover is an independent product and is not affiliated with Apple Inc. or Microsoft Corporation. Windows is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation; Mac, macOS and Finder are trademarks of Apple Inc.