Macbook Pro Touchbar Fix for a Hardware Escape Key

So I’ve been really happy with the new MacBook Pro 15" so far and I really only have one problem; pressing backspace sometimes I started Siri so I just removed it from the menu!

I’ve noticed is on a British Keyboard there is a key that no-one actually uses where Escape could be, so let’s fix it!

This looks like a perfect hardware escape key

It seems, as I’ve never once used “Section Sign” § or “Plus Minus” ± that Jonny Ive is being kind to us Brits indeed!

To remap the keys in macOS Sierra I’ve used the Karabina-Elements tool. Let’s install it:

> brew install Caskroom/cask/karabiner-elements

Now do as it says and type your password (or as I discovered the program won’t do anything).

Karabiner doesn’t yet support the key combination we are looking for from the interface to let’s change the underlying config file.

> vim ~/.karabiner.d/configuration/karabiner.json

Next change the karabiner.json to add “non_us_backslash”: “escape” to the simple modifications object literal:

…

“simple_modifications”: {

“non_us_backslash”: “escape”

}

…

That’s all you need, enjoy your new escape key!