Coexisting with Karabiner-Elements

Capslock needs Caps Lock and the F18 key to itself. It never edits, disables, or uninstalls Karabiner-Elements or any other tool. When something else already uses those keys, Capslock refuses to start and tells you what to change.

What counts as a conflict

• A system key remap of Caps Lock. If another tool has remapped Caps Lock, Diagnostics shows "Caps Lock is used by another tool".
• Another use of F18. If anything remaps a key to or from F18, Diagnostics shows "F18 is already in use".
• A Karabiner-Elements rule. When Karabiner-Elements is running, Capslock reads the selected profile and looks for rules that start from Caps Lock or F18, or that produce F18. It reports only how many it found, never their names or contents.

Karabiner-Elements can keep running for everything else. Only rules on Caps Lock and F18 conflict.

Resolving a Karabiner conflict

1. Open Karabiner-Elements › Complex Modifications.
2. Turn off the rule that starts from Caps Lock (such as "CapsLock to Hyper"), or switch to a profile without it.
3. Return to Capslock and click Try Again on Home or in Diagnostics.

Diagnostics has an Open Karabiner-Elements button for step 1. Capslock checks again every time you switch back to it, so a conflict that appears later stops Capslock and gives Caps Lock back rather than leaving two tools fighting over it.

Moving from the Karabiner configuration

The native app ships the same Capslock Classic layout, so you do not need to bring anything across to keep the bindings you know. A few things work differently:

• Tapping Caps Lock sends Escape. ⇪ Space sends ⌃Space for switching input source.
• You choose a Hyper mode. Classic, the default, still holds the right-side ⌃⌥⇧⌘ for apps that listen for Hyper.
• Clipboard slots are stored encrypted inside Capslock. Files such as ~/.clip6 from the Karabiner setup are not read.
• Apps are opened by bundle ID, not through open -a in a shell.
• Changes you made to your own Karabiner JSON are not imported. Recreate them in the keyboard editor.

When you are ready, turn off the Capslock rules in Karabiner-Elements as described above, then start Capslock. The Karabiner configuration itself stays documented in the Karabiner Edition if you want to go back.