Sticky Keys: how do you cancel a modifier key?

Question

When Sticky Keys is enabled, how do you cancel a modifier key that you have pressed by accident?

For example, let's assume that your intention was to press Alt and you pressed Control instead: how would you cancel Control and then press Alt?

If it is possible, does it work the same way both on Windows and Linux?

Thanks.

EDIT: On Gnome, a sticky key can be disabled with two more presses. What about Windows?

EDIT2: Anyway, on Gnome sometimes sticky modifiers get stuck, thus I'm not considering to use them anymore.

Answer 1

I believe the state sequence is as follows, under Windows 10:

- First press - engage the modifier key for the next (non modifier) keypress
- Second press - lock the modifier key
- Third press - cancel the modifier key

Multiple modifier keys can be engaged with single or double presses.

Edit Feb 2021

I have recently tried to reproduce these findings and it appears to be keyboard dependent. I tried two keyboards. One works exactly as described above. The second works like this:

- First press of either shift - engage shift modifier for next key (alpha or numbers)
- Right then left shift in sequence - lock shift function. Single left shift to clear
- Control, alt - just modify the next keypress.

The sticky keys icon on the taskbar does show what modifier will be applied. This is quite fiddly, and I can't say if it is unreliable or I get in a muddle, but the next press is not always what I expect. If it is reliable, I think I could get used to it.

I cannot find any reliable sticky keys information from Microsoft. If you can reference good information, please comment.

For what is is worth, sticky keys works much better for macOs and an iPad with an external keyboard.

Answer 2

I often find myself in the same situation, usually because I press the Shift key reflexively and then realize I don't want to capitalize the next letter. I figured out experimentally that pressing the Caps Lock key twice will clear a modifier key after it has been pressed. Unfortunately, it seems to confuse the Caps Lock indicator on my keyboard, but I can live with that.

Answer 3

TL;DR answer: press the same sticky key again, twice.

Full Answer

I've been using Sticky Keys constantly, on all of my devices, for a decade.

1. Make It Visible

The easiest way to understand how they work is to see them.

Don't blame yourself for getting lost/confused/stuck/frustrated. Sticky Keys is unusable without a visual indicator.

On Windows, the built-in one looks like this:

Each of those four boxes represents one of the modifier keys:

So for example, if you press Shift, it will look like this:

Problems with Windows 11

This indicator used to just show up automatically whenever Sticky Keys is turned on, but now you have to go into Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Other system tray icons and turn on the "Windows Explorer" icon:

But wait, it gets worse. Whenever your computer starts up again, Windows 11 will forget to show the icon. And you'll have to toggle Sticky Keys off and on to get it to show up (not the icon, Sticky Keys itself). To make this easier, you can create a shortcut to ms-settings:easeofaccess-keyboard. Luckily, the Sticky Keys toggle has input focus by default, so once you're there, you can hit Space once to turn it off and again (but not too fast) to turn it back on. You can also give shortcuts a global keyboard shortcut, for example Alt+F3, so that the whole sequence after log in is just Alt+F3, Space, Space, Alt+F4:

2. Basic Rules

The standard behavior across every "sticky keys" implementation is the same behavior that you get with Shift on a phone touch keyboard:

1. If you press the modifier key once, it is latched: it will be in effect for one key press, and then turn off.

   

2. If you press a latched modifier key again, it is locked: it will effect all further key presses without turning off

   

3. Once you press a locked modifier key again, it is back to off.

   

4. Oh, and if you use the modifier key as normal, it works as normal (hold the modifier, press another key, let go of the modifier - no modifier is latched).

3. Combining

Two different sticky modifiers are supposed to interleave freely.

For example, if you press Shift and then the Windows key, you'll have both latched at once:

..and then if you press the Windows key again, the Windows key will be locked, and then you can turn off the Windows key by pressing it once more, meanwhile Shift remains latched the entire time: