Typing speed is mostly about keystrokes you do not have to make. A faster typist and a slower one pressing the same keys will finish close together; a typist who presses half as many keys will not. So most of this list is about removing keystrokes, and most of it is free and already built into macOS.
1. Text replacements
macOS will expand a short trigger into a longer phrase anywhere you type. Open System Settings › Keyboard, click Text Replacements, press +, and add a trigger such as ;addr and the text it should become. Good candidates are your address, your email sign-off, a meeting link, and any sentence you find yourself retyping every week. They sync to your other Apple devices via iCloud.
2–4. Edit by word and by line
Holding Delete or an arrow key is the slowest way to fix anything. These work in almost every Mac text field:
| Shortcut | What it does |
|---|---|
| ⌥ Delete | Delete the previous word |
| ⌘ Delete | Delete back to the start of the line |
| ⌥ ← / → | Move one word left or right |
| ⌘ ← / → | Jump to the start or end of the line |
| ⌘ ↑ / ↓ | Jump to the start or end of the document |
| Add ⇧ | Any of the moves above, selecting as it goes |
5. Dictation
For a long first draft, speaking is faster than typing. Turn on dictation in System Settings › Keyboard › Dictation and choose a shortcut. Dictate the rough version, then edit with the keyboard; the combination is quicker than either alone.
6. Key repeat
If you ever do hold a key, the defaults are slow. In System Settings › Keyboard, move Key repeat rate toward Fast and Delay until repeat toward Short. It takes an hour to get used to and saves seconds every time afterwards.
7. Emoji and symbols
⌃ ⌘ Space opens the emoji and symbols picker, where you can type to search. On recent Mac keyboards the Globe key, 🌐 E, does the same. Some autocomplete apps also complete emoji from shortcodes: in WeType, typing :smi offers 🙂.
8. Inline predictions
Since macOS Sonoma, your Mac can show the next word or two in grey as you type; press Space to accept. It is free and on by default for many people. If you find it more distracting than useful, here is how to turn it off, or back on.
9. AI autocomplete
The largest single cut in keystrokes comes from finishing whole phrases rather than words. An AI autocomplete app predicts the rest of the sentence you are writing and shows it in grey; one key accepts it. Where it helps most is predictable writing: replies, updates, confirmations, commit messages, and anything that follows from the message you are answering.
WeType does this in every app on a Mac with a language model that runs on the Mac itself. Tab takes the next word, so you can accept half a suggestion and finish the sentence yourself. It is free for 5 days, with 100 accepted words a day, which is enough to find out whether it suits the way you write. If you are new to the idea, start with how AI autocomplete works.
10. The unglamorous one
If you still look at the keys, ten minutes a day of touch-typing practice for a few weeks will do more than any tool on this list. Every other trick compounds on top of it.