You know those function keys at the top of your keyboard, F1 through 12? Did you
know that there's actually 24 of them? Not just F1 through 12. And even though they
were only found on really old keyboards, and none today, you still might find them
very useful. You might be thinking, how can keyboard keys that don't exist be useful?
But stick around, I think you'll be surprised. You see,
even though the F13 through F24 keys don't exist physically on keyboards anymore,
operating systems and many programs still recognize them, which is the key to all this,
no pun intended. Though I will point out that newer Apple keyboards do actually have F13
through F19 keys, they're just above some of the keys on the right, like above the numpad.
Now why is it good to know about these hidden function keys? Well,
many keyboards and mice these days have macro buttons that you can program. You might be using
one right now. But even if you don't have any programmable keys, they still might come in handy,
and I'll explain why. Or also you might even be using something like the Stream
Deck or the virtual version of it that lets you program different keys and functions to buttons.
But going back to the macro keys on keyboards, these keys are not standard,
and you usually have to use the manufacturer's software to assign either a key to it,
or a combination that activates when you press it. Now, why does it matter that
you have to assign the macro keys to other keys that already exist or combinations?
One example is that some programs let you set keyboard shortcuts for certain actions,
but only allow you to assign it to a single key, not a key combination. A lot of games
do this actually. You can bind actions to a key, but it has to be one physical key.
This might not sound like a problem, because you could just assign the macro key to F7 or
some other key that you never use, and isn't assigned to anything else in that program.
But then maybe you want to use that same macro key for a different function in another program,
and in there, F7 is assigned to something else. So you end up needing to find a key
that basically no program uses, and if you need to assign a bunch of macro keys,
then good luck finding that many unused keys.
Hmm, sure would be nice if there was a bunch of somewhat universal keys that weren't used
by anything. Well, that's exactly where the F13 through F24 keys come in. They're usually
recognized as valid keys, but are never assigned to anything by default. Now in some cases,
it would be fine to assign one of the macro keys to some weird
combination like Ctrl-Alt-Shift-0 that's very unlikely to be used in any program.
But again, you might come across a program that requires it to be
just one key. Now as for mapping these extra function keys to your macro keys,
sometimes you might run into some issues. On one hand, fortunately in some programs,
like for example Logitech's G-Hub software, it lets you assign a macro key by simply
dragging the key onto the button, and it includes the F13 through F24 keys.
But other programs require you to actually press the button that you want to assign to the key,
like this Onboard Memory Manager, which is also made by Logitech for mice. You can see it has
some drop-down options, but for most, including these hidden function keys, you'll need to select
the Keystroke + Modifier option, and then it listens for the key that you have to press.
But you can't press the F13 through 24 keys if you don't have them. However, there is a workaround
using an official app published by Microsoft called Power Automate, and if you have Windows 11,
I believe it is already pre-installed anyway, so you can search for it. And basically it lets
you create automated scripts that do whatever you want really, and these are called Flows.
And to use it, all you need is a Microsoft account to log into it. So what you do is
you create a new Flow, and then search on the left for an action called "Wait",
and then drag that over into the main part of the window. And in the popup, you can set
the duration to 5 seconds, and then save. And you'll see why this is necessary in a second.
Next, search for the "Send Keys" action, and in the box, type a pair of curly braces,
and between those, put F24 or whatever other function key you want. I would
also enable the option that says "Send Text as Hardware Keys", though I don't
think it's necessary. If it doesn't work for some reason, you can always try disabling it.
And then just hit save. Now it's ready, and look near the top for the Run button,
which is a play button, and click that. And now you have 5 seconds to go into
that other program that's listening for the key input, and when it's the active window,
just wait for Power Automate to send the key, and as you can see,
it registered as the F24 key, even though I didn't actually press anything physically.
And that's how you would assign the other hidden function keys, even if the program requires you
to press it. Now what if you have a keyboard or mouse that don't have any macro keys? Well,
these still might come in handy. For example, maybe you're using a program that only allows
single key keyboard shortcuts, but you want to use a key combination instead.
In that case, we can actually use the PowerToys suite of tools, which is actually again,
published by Microsoft themselves. And this has a bunch of tools built in,
but the one we're looking for specifically is called Keyboard Manager. And basically
this lets you remap keys and shortcuts on your keyboard.
In our case, to remap a combination, you'd go to Remap Shortcuts,
and then put in whatever combination we want, maybe Shift + F1, and then map that to F13,
and the same for the others. So it's kind of like a reverse macro,
though it does also have the option to remap individual keys to another individual key.
Another option you might want to do is if your keyboard has secondary functions on the F keys,
such as the volume mute, volume up and down, screen brightness,
that sort of thing that you never use, you could use the same Keyboard Manager
to reassign the "Function + Whatever" key to F13 through F24. And instead of
now changing the volume or whatever, it will activate those hidden function keys you set.
Now, all that being said, one thing to keep in mind is that not every single program might
recognize these hidden keys, because obviously no keyboard has them. They are often overlooked,
but Windows itself does recognize them. And hopefully most programs do. The ones
I've tested do. But even still, it might come in handy with the other examples I mentioned.
So let me know if you know about these keys before, and are you going to start
using them? Or maybe there's other uses that I didn't think of that are really
cool. You can let me know down in the comments, and also be sure to look down
there because maybe someone did leave a good comment. If you enjoyed this video,
be sure to give it a big giant thumbs up for the YouTube algorithm, and also consider subscribing.
I try to make videos about twice a week, usually Wednesday and Saturday. If you want
to keep watching, another related video I'd recommend is one I made a while ago talking
about those weird keys you may have seen on your keyboard, like scroll lock, pause break,
that you may have never known what they do, but I go over what those are actually for in that video.
So I'll put that link right there you can just click on. So thanks so much
for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.