How to Add a Persian (Farsi) Keyboard on Mac
Add a Farsi keyboard on macOS in under two minutes. The exact System Settings path, how to switch layouts, the Keyboard Viewer trick, and typing ی and ک correctly.
No Download Needed
Searching for a "Farsi keyboard download for Mac" turns up plenty of third-party downloads. You do not need any of them. macOS ships with a Persian layout built in — it just is not switched on by default.
On macOS Ventura and later:
- Open System Settings
- Click Keyboard in the sidebar
- Next to Text Input, click Edit...
- Click the + button at the bottom left
- Choose Persian in the language list, pick a layout, and click Add
On macOS Monterey and earlier the path is System Preferences → Keyboard → Input Sources → +.
Which Persian Layout to Pick
macOS offers more than one Persian option, and the choice matters more than it looks.
- Persian – Standard follows the Iranian national standard. If you will ever type on a keyboard in Iran, or share documents with Iranian colleagues, choose this one.
- Persian – ISIRI 2901 is the formal standard designation, essentially the same layout.
- Persian – QWERTY maps Persian letters onto the closest-sounding English keys. Much easier to start with, since ب sits where b is.
If you are learning and typing occasionally, QWERTY will get you moving faster. If you plan to type Persian seriously, learning Standard from the beginning saves relearning later.
Switching Layouts
Once a second input source exists, macOS gives you three ways to switch:
- Control + Space cycles to the next input source
- Caps Lock can be set to switch, which many bilingual typists prefer
- The flag or character icon in the menu bar opens a picker
To enable the Caps Lock method, go to Keyboard → Text Input → Edit and turn on "Use the Caps Lock key to switch to and from...".
Text direction flips automatically in apps that support right-to-left, including Pages, TextEdit, Safari and Notes.
Use the Keyboard Viewer While You Learn
Persian letters are not printed on your keys, so the first weeks involve a lot of hunting.
macOS has an on-screen keyboard that shows the current layout live. Turn it on in Keyboard → Text Input → Edit → Show Input menu in menu bar, then choose Show Keyboard Viewer from the menu bar icon.
It floats above your other windows and highlights keys as you press them. Hold Shift or Option and the display updates, which is the quickest way to find characters you rarely need — like the Persian comma ، and question mark ؟.
Getting ی and ک Right
Persian and Arabic use different characters for two letters that look nearly identical on screen:
| Letter | Persian | Arabic |
|---|---|---|
| yeh | ی | ي |
| kaf | ک | ك |
If you install the Arabic layout rather than the Persian one, you will produce the Arabic forms. Text still reads, but searches may fail to match and some fonts render them differently.
The Persian layouts on macOS give the correct Persian characters, so choosing Persian rather than Arabic is the whole fix.
Practise What You Type
The layout is the easy part. Recognising letters at speed is what takes practice.
Learn the letters first with our free Persian alphabet course, then type them daily in practice. Typing forces recall in a way reading does not.
On a phone as well? See the setup for iPhone and iPad, Android and Windows.