Shift key showing weird behavior

Question

Shift key showing weird behavior

Hi, this just happened today: the shift key of my keyboard behaves in a funny way, but only in some programs:

In Apple Mail, pressing the shift key results in the message list scrolling to the very bottom, without changing the selected email.
In Messages, when composing a message the shift key just makes a beep, I can't type the uppercase letter.

In all other programs that I tested the shift key behaved as expected (MS Word, TextEdit, Pages …)

iMac 24″, macOS 26.0

Posted on Oct 14, 2025 9:07 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Christoph Drösser Author

Level 6

11,342 points

Oct 15, 2025 4:56 PM in response to Christoph Drösser

Update:

It's definitely a hardware problem since other keyboards work fine on this Mac and this keyboard shows the same behavior on other Macs.
I found out with keyboardtester.com that pressing the left shift key doesn't only sent out a "shift" signal but "shift + end" which leads to the behavior I described.
I have an appointment at the Genius bar – they might be able to fix the key with compressed air or whatever – or get me a new keyboard (I hope my AppleCare+ covers it.)

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Answer 2

dialabrain

Level 10

134,447 points

Oct 15, 2025 12:41 AM in response to Christoph Drösser

Test in Safe Mode. If it doesn't occur then it's some third-party software you installed. Also, update to 26.0.1 if you haven't already.

Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support

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Answer 3

rkaufmann87

Level 10

148,314 points

Oct 14, 2025 10:12 PM in response to Christoph Drösser

Restart the computer and retest.

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Answer 4

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

121,730 points

Oct 15, 2025 3:18 PM in response to Christoph Drösser

Check J and F on this note

When Keys Don't Behave Correctly - Apple Community

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Answer 5

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

121,730 points

Oct 15, 2025 5:26 AM in response to Christoph Drösser

Do both left and right shift keys do these things?

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Answer 6

Oct 15, 2025 10:19 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Great question! The right key doesn't do it. Before I read your answer I tried a different keyboard and it works fine. So it seems to be a hardware related problem with my Apple keyboard. A key that's not broken but that does something different from what it's supposed to do – how do I fix that??

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Answer 7

Oct 14, 2025 11:11 PM in response to rkaufmann87

Done that already!

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