Get the Ducky One 2 working as a native keyboard on macOS

The Ducky One 2 SF is one of my favourite keyboards. It only had big con: it didn’t work properly with macOS. When plugging it in everything worked fine, but after waking it from sleep it refused to work. The Ducky One 2 didn’t respond at all. Ducky solved this with a firmware update¹.

There is another way for solving the issue and that one turns you Ducky One 2 into a “Magic Keyboard”. The fix and hack is easy, but finding it took a while. The hack re-programs the keyboard and makes it appear as an “Apple Magic” USB keyboard. Including the function keys to work as media keys

Follow these steps:

1. Plugin your keyboard.
2. Press and hold Fn + Alt + p for 3 seconds.
3. Several keys will light up red.
4. Type 05aC024f for keyboards with an ANSI layout. For keyboards with an ISO layout you type 05ac0250.²
5. Unplug and replug the keyboard to restart it.

That’s all it takes. The fix should also work on the Ducky One 2 Mini.

The Ducky One 2 is a Windows keyboard first. That means that CMD/Win and Alt/Opt are reversed. You can swap the keys on the keyboard and remap them in macOS with these steps:

1. Open System Preferences.
2. Go to Keyboard.
3. Go to Modifier Keys.
4. Choose the action you want for each modifier key.

Now you have a Ducky One 2 working as a proper Mac keyboard.

You can reset the keyboard to factory defaults bij press and hold Left Win + Arrow down for 3 seconds. The key combination can vary per Ducky model.

1. Download the Ducky One 2 firmware update.
2. This article explains the difference between ANSI and ISO layout.