Which MacBooks have an accelerometer?

Short answer: the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro from the 2021 M1 Pro and M1 Max models on, and every MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro with M2 or later, have an undocumented accelerometer that apps can read. The M1 MacBook Air, the 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro, Intel MacBooks and desktop Macs don't. We verified it on a 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro on November 2, 2026; the other rows rely on the public sources linked under the tables.

The sensor sits inside the case and is run by the chip's Sensor Processing Unit (SPU). Apple doesn't advertise it or offer an API for it, which is why people call it the MacBook's hidden accelerometer or hidden motion sensor.

MacBook Pro

MacBook Air

MacBook Neo, Intel MacBooks and desktop Macs

How to check your MacBook

1. Find your model. Choose Apple menu › About This Mac to see the name and chip. System Information › Hardware shows the Model Identifier, such as Mac17,9.
2. Or ask macOS directly. Open Terminal and paste the command below. It only reads the system's device list, so it doesn't need sudo.
3. Read the answer. 1 means the accelerometer is there. 0 means macOS doesn't list it.

ioreg -r -c AppleSPUHIDDevice -d 1 | grep -c '"DeviceUsagePage"=65280,"DeviceUsage"=3}'

We tested this command on a 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro (Mac17,9) running macOS 26.6.2, where it prints 1. It looks for the same device Keyslam looks for at launch: an AppleSPUHIDDevice on vendor usage page 0xFF00 (65280) with usage 3. Usage 9 on the same page is the gyroscope. If you'd rather browse, the apple-silicon-accelerometer README suggests ioreg -l -w0 | grep -A5 AppleSPUHIDDevice.

What the sensor is

• An accelerometer and a gyroscope in one small motion chip (IMU), believed from teardowns to be a Bosch BMI286, according to the apple-silicon-accelerometer README.
• Found in 2022. iFixit spotted it in the M2 MacBook Air teardown and couldn't say what Apple uses it for (Macworld).
• About 800 readings a second at its native rate. Keyslam reads it at about that rate to time and size each keystroke.
• Undocumented. Knock's site says it “relies on hardware features that are not officially documented by Apple (such as accelerometer access)”, so support can vary by model and macOS version.
• Not the Sudden Motion Sensor. Intel notebooks had a motion sensor to park hard-drive heads when dropped. Apple says SSD Macs don't use it (Apple).

Apps that use the MacBook's hidden accelerometer

A handful of apps read the same sensor for very different jobs. Descriptions come from each project's own page, checked November 2, 2026.

Most of them do different jobs. If you want taps on the case to run shortcuts, Knock is built for that. Haptyk and TapNoise are keyboard sound apps like Keyslam, which only uses the sensor to judge how hard each key was pressed. How Keyslam differs from each is on the Haptyk alternative page and the TapNoise alternative page. For keyboard sound apps side by side, with prices and sources, see our comparison of Mac keyboard sound apps.

Can two sensor apps run at the same time?

We haven't tested Keyslam alongside Knock, Haptyk, TapNoise or spank yet, so we can't promise it. Here is what we know from our own code: Keyslam opens the sensor in shared mode, not exclusively. It also switches the sensor's reporting off when it goes idle after 3 minutes, when you switch sounds or force sensing off, and when it quits, which could pause another app's readings until that app turns the sensor back on. We'll update this page once we've tested it.

Is the sensor data private?

In Keyslam, yes. Readings are filtered and kept in memory, about the last 5 seconds, only to match each jolt to a keystroke. They're never written to disk or sent anywhere, and the app makes no network connections at all.

No sensor? You still get the sounds

Force sensing is the only feature that needs the sensor. On the M1 MacBook Air, the 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro, Intel Macs and desktops, every pack plays and you choose Soft, Medium, Hard or Slam. Read keyboard sounds for Macs without the motion sensor, or see what the MacBook typing sound app does on each model.