What Keyboard Layout Do I Have? Keyboard Layout Detector

Identify the exact keyboard layout your laptop or keyboard uses (e.g. "English (United States)", "French (Legacy, AZERTY)", "German (IBM)") and what your typed text's language is.

Find out exactly which keyboard layout your machine is using, by its proper Windows name and identifier, such as English (United States), French (Legacy, AZERTY) or German (IBM), with the matching Linux and macOS names where they are known. Chrome and Edge report the layout instantly; other browsers get a guided key-by-key probe. A second tab tells you which language a piece of typed text is written in.

What a keyboard layout actually is

The physical keys on a keyboard send scan codes; the operating system's layout table decides which character each code produces on its own, with Shift, and with AltGr. The same laptop can therefore be an AZERTY, a QWERTZ or a Dvorak machine depending only on that table. Windows identifies each table with an eight-digit hexadecimal Keyboard Layout Identifier, and this tool ships a catalogue of 194 distinct layouts built from the full set of Windows layout definitions, with identical physical maps grouped so that, for example, US and the East Asian IME layouts that share it are reported together.

How to check or change your keyboard layout in Windows and macOS

  1. Windows: look at the language abbreviation near the clock, such as ENG or FRA, and click it or press Windows key + Space to switch between installed layouts.
  2. Windows 11: go to Settings > Time & language > Language & region, open the options for your language, and add or remove a keyboard under Keyboards.
  3. macOS: open the input menu in the menu bar to see and switch the active input source.
  4. macOS: go to System Settings > Keyboard, then Text Input > Edit, to add or remove input sources.
  5. Reload this page and let the detector run again to confirm the layout you picked is the one now active.

Automatic detection

Chromium browsers expose the Keyboard Map API, which returns the unshifted character for each physical key. The detector reads the 48 printable keys of the main block, compares them against every catalogued layout and shows the best match with a matched-keys count, the identifier, any aliases, and the corresponding names on Linux and macOS when those are catalogued. When several layouts share the same base layer, differing only under Shift or AltGr, the tool asks you to press just the few keys that tell them apart.

The guided probe

Firefox and Safari do not provide the map, and sometimes the automatic answer is not what you expected, so a manual mode highlights one key at a time on an on-screen keyboard and records what your keyboard actually sends when you press it, first plain, then with Shift, then with AltGr. Dead keys, the ones that wait for a vowel before producing an accented letter, are recognised and matched against the layouts that define them. You can stop after twenty keys if the top candidate is already clear, and any keys that disagree with the winning layout are highlighted in red so you can see where your hardware and your settings diverge.

Identifying a keyboard layout from the printed keys

When keys type the wrong symbols

If every key registers but some produce the wrong characters, the operating system's layout does not match the printing on your keycaps; the hardware is almost never at fault. The classic case is a US keyboard set to UK English, which swaps @ and " and turns the key beside Enter into something unexpected. Run the detector to see which layout is actually active, compare it with your keycaps, and switch the input source to match.

If a key produces nothing at all, or repeats on its own, that points to hardware instead, and the Keyboard Tester can show whether the key is registering, double-firing or dropping out.

Typed-text language

The second tab answers the other meaning of the question. Paste a sentence or two and a statistical model compares its letter trigrams against profiles for 82 languages, returning the three most likely with a confidence ordering; a separate line names the writing system, such as Latin, Cyrillic or Arabic, from the characters themselves. Ten characters is the minimum for a meaningful answer; a paragraph is much better.

Keystrokes, photos and text stay in the page

Keystrokes captured during the probe are used only to compare against the catalogue in memory and are never transmitted or stored. The layout catalogue is a static file shipped with the page, so the detector also works offline once loaded. Text in the language tab is analysed locally as well. Camera frames and photos used on the photo tab are read by text recognition running inside the page, using recognition files served from this site, and are not uploaded.

Questions people ask about Keyboard Layout Detector

The result says close instead of exact. What does that mean?
One or more of the compared keys did not match the winning layout, typically because of a custom remap, a different physical keyboard than the operating system thinks is attached, or a layout variant that differs on a single key. The mismatching keys are listed and drawn in red.
Why does Firefox need the manual probe?
Firefox and Safari have not implemented the Keyboard Map API that returns the characters bound to each physical key, so the only way to learn the layout is to record what the keys produce when pressed.
What is a KLID?
The Keyboard Layout Identifier is the eight-digit hexadecimal code Windows uses for each layout table, such as 00000409 for US or 0000040c for French. It appears in the registry, in deployment scripts and in support forums, which is why the tool reports it.
Why is the Linux or macOS name shown as not catalogued?
Only layouts whose equivalents were verified are mapped. Rather than guess, the tool leaves the field empty for the rest; the Windows name and identifier are always shown.
How accurate is the language detection?
For a paragraph of natural text in a common language it is very reliable; for a few words, names or code it is not, and closely related languages such as Danish and Norwegian can be confused. Treat the top three as a ranked guess.
Does the probe change any settings on my computer?
No. It only listens to key events on the page while the capture box is focused and prevents the browser from acting on them; nothing is written to the system.
How do I change my keyboard layout in Windows?
Press Windows key + Space to cycle through the layouts already installed. To install a new one on Windows 11, open Settings, choose Time & language, then Language & region, open your language's options and add the keyboard you want. The switch applies immediately, without a restart.
What's the difference between QWERTY, AZERTY and QWERTZ?
The names come from the first letters on the top letter row. QWERTY is used for English and many other languages, AZERTY swaps A with Q and Z with W for French and Belgian users, and QWERTZ swaps Y and Z for German and neighboring languages.
Is my keyboard ANSI or ISO?
ANSI boards have a wide one-row Enter and a long left Shift; ISO boards have a tall L-shaped Enter and an extra key beside the left Shift. Press that extra key and the Physical keyboard panel confirms ISO. Browsers never report the board type directly, so absence of the key stays an inference.
How do I check my keyboard layout on a Mac?
Open the input menu in the menu bar, or System Settings > Keyboard > Text Input, to see the active input source. This detector also works in Mac browsers and shows the macOS name next to the Windows name when that equivalent is catalogued.
Why does my keyboard type @ and " in the wrong places?
Your system is most likely set to UK English while the keyboard is a US model, or the other way round. On a US layout Shift+2 gives @, while UK English puts " on Shift+2 and moves @ to the key beside Enter. Switch the input source to match the keycaps.

Related tools on BrakeTools

Content reviewed 2026-09-27.