English keyboard layout with german umlauts

English keyboard layout and keyBindings with german umlauts for MacOS. See also this blog post.

Keyboard layout

cp -r en-german-umlauts.bundle ~/Library/Keyboard\ Layouts/

This installs a english keyboard layout for current user with following modifiactions:

⌥ Option + a -> ä
⌥ Option + o -> ö
⌥ Option + u -> ü
⌥ Option + s -> ß
⌥ Option + e -> €

You have to enable it in System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Input Sources -> English -> English German Umlauts.

MacOS won't accept this keyboard layout as default. In my case some applications are using it, others not. This can be fixed on MacOS Sierra with following steps:

• Double-check if English with German Umlauts is currently selected.
• vi ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist
• If the plist file is not human readable convert it: plutil -convert xml1 ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.HIToolbox.plist
• Remove the default fallback from AppleEnabledInputSources. If there is an AppleDefaultAsciiInputSource key, remove it.
• sudo reboot

It's important to follow these steps exactly. MacOS will instantly restore the plist file if you switch to another application with default keyboard after editing the file or if you don't reboot with sudo. More information on Ask Different.

Update 2018

Seem like the method above does not work on a 2018 MBP with TouchBar and High Sierra. I had more luck with moving the keyboard bundle to the root layout folder /Library/Keyboard\ Layouts/. Editing com.apple.HIToolbox.plist was not necessary then.

I suggest using Ukelele if you want to create a custom keyboard layout on your own.

Key bindings

This is an alternative if you want to easily remap keys on your own without creating a full keyboard layout. Unfortunately you can't remap dead keys so ⌥ Option + a is mapped to ä but for ü you have to type ⌥ Option + u and u.

# Backup if already present
$ cp ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict ~/Library/KeyBindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict.orig
$ cp DefaultKeyBinding.dict ~/Library/KeyBindings/

MacOS will also accept this file written in plist syntax.

More information in Text System Defaults and Key Bindings and osxnotes.net.