< and ^ keys are swapped

This appears to be a macOS issue where the OS shows that the keyboard is listed as (e.g. in my case) ISO-type, but in reality macOS handles it as an ANSI-type (or vice versa with other standard keyboard-types).

You can use the guide below to try and set it correctly in macOS again, however it seems like the issue reappears after some time for a lot of users from comments.

If the issue reappears please try using a keyboard-editor like the ones listed in the other answers.

This can be because your keyboard isn't set as ISO standard. This happens sometimes.

To change it to the right type:

1. Open System Preferences > Keyboard, select the Keyboard tab and then 'Change Keyboard Type...'

   This opens the Keyboard Setup Assistant.

2. Follow the prompt 'Press the key to the right of the shift key on the left side.'

   It should now have detected and selected 'ISO' as your standard. If not select it and click 'OK'. 'ISO' is generally used for European keyboards.

If this doesn't solve it, you can try manually resetting the settings file:

1. Delete /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist
2. Restart
3. When the keyboard assistent pops up. press the key like it says and select ISO (European)

Note: The problem with fixing this with Ukelele as the selected answer, is that it will swap the keys the other way around on your internal keyboard.

Deleting /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist and relying on the keyboard type detection wizard repeatedly did not work for me for my external german keyboard (having also an internal german keyboard).

But editing the file /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist manually worked!

This is what I did:

sudo plutil -convert xml1 /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist

Edit file /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist and change type 43 to 41 (or the other way round, depending on what you have) for all the keyboards (or just for the relevant one, but I was not able to figure out which one to change so I changed them all).

sudo plutil -convert binary1 /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist (Converting back to binary is not necessary, empirically.)

Reboot. Now the < and the ^ keys should be swapped.

Update 2023-08-06: This issue is still present with macOS Ventura 13.5. Pressing the "other" key in "Change Keyboard type ..." does not fix this, but the steps mentioned above do. Setting both keyboards to type 41 fixed the swapped keys for me. But the real cause of this swap is still a mystery. Now the key behaviour in applications is correct, but the keys are swapped in the the "Keyboard Viewer". When pressing the keys the "other" key gets hilted in the Keyboard Viewer. Before applying the fix, then the keys were swapped for applications, the correct keys would hilite in Keyboard Viewer. So the fix above fixes the problem on the wrong level.

You can use Karabiner Elements to swap the keys using Karabiner Eventviewer to find the keycodes of the keys:

1. Make sure the keyboard you experience the issue with is plugged in.

2. Install Karabiner Elements. Karabiner Eventviewer will be installed with it.

3. Open Karabiner Eventviewer. Without pressing any other keys, press the two keys you want to swap. The keys ‘key name’ is now shown in the ‘Name’ column. Remember these names or keep the Eventviwer open, to reference again.

   Note: If you're unsure if you have found the correct keys, click the ‘clear the result’ button and then press each of the two keys you want to swap again. Now their ‘key names’ should be at the top of the list like on the screenshot below.

   

4. Open Karabiner Elements and select the keyboard you have the issue with as your ‘Target device:’ in the dropdown.

5. Add two new items to the list and find each ‘key name’ from Karabiner Eventviewer in ‘From key’ column, for each of the new items. Now add the opposite key in the ‘To key’ column for each item (see screenshot for reference).

   

6. You have now swapped the keys!

I bizarrely had this problem after buying a new mouse (SteelSeries Rival 3), which is plugged into a USB-C monitor (with a keyboard plugged in to the monitor as well), and the monitor has a single USB-C cable going to the MacBook. I could also imagine this being a problem when using USB dongles.

The fix that worked for me:

1. In the terminal, remove the keyboardtype file sudo rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.keyboardtype.plist, from the accepted answer.
2. Remove both keyboard and mouse from the USB ports on the monitor/USB hub.
3. Reboot the computer.
4. After logging in, plug in the keyboard. Complete the identification. Your keys should work as intended.
5. Plug in the mouse to the monitor. Close the new identification box that opened up. Everything should work.

Very easy fix I used to solve this: (disclaimer: I don't know what I'm doing.)

When Apple tries to understand your Keyboard by having you click the button next to shift ('<'), I just clicked '^' instead. It proposed ISO (european) then for me, that fixed it.

Alright, I'm going to add my personal fix as well. It was "almost" the same as mentioned using karabiner - although after several minutes I was still not able to find the two key_codes "non_us_backslash" and "grave_accent_and_tilde". I figured out the key_codes using Karabiner EventViewer. Then I went over to Karabiner-Elements Settings and on the side menu to "Complex Modifications". You can "Add your own rule" there. Its formatted as a json-file - but since we all have things like ChatGPT this shouldnt be too much of a problem. Here is the file anyways. Works like a charm:

{ "description": "Custom Keyboard Remappings including shift variants", "manipulators": [ { "type": "basic", "from": { "key_code": "caps_lock", "modifiers": { "mandatory": [ "left_shift" ], "optional": [ "any" ] } }, "to": [ { "key_code": "page_down", "modifiers": [] } ] }, { "type": "basic", "from": { "key_code": "caps_lock", "modifiers": { "mandatory": [ "right_shift" ], "optional": [ "any" ] } }, "to": [ { "apple_vendor_keyboard_key_code": "mission_control", "modifiers": [ "left_command" ] } ] }, { "type": "basic", "from": { "key_code": "grave_accent_and_tilde" }, "to": [ { "key_code": "non_us_backslash" } ] }, { "type": "basic", "from": { "key_code": "non_us_backslash" }, "to": [ { "key_code": "grave_accent_and_tilde" } ] }, { "type": "basic", "from": { "key_code": "grave_accent_and_tilde", "modifiers": { "mandatory": [ "shift" ], "optional": [ "any" ] } }, "to": [ { "key_code": "non_us_backslash", "modifiers": [ "shift" ] } ] }, { "type": "basic", "from": { "key_code": "non_us_backslash", "modifiers": { "mandatory": [ "shift" ], "optional": [ "any" ] } }, "to": [ { "key_code": "grave_accent_and_tilde", "modifiers": [ "shift" ] } ] } ] } 

Just for fun I opened the Change Keyboard Type... dialog again from keyboard settings and pressed Shift + Key right to Shift instead of just the key right to shift and it worked without deleting or rebooting!!

Open System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard tab > Change Keyboard Type... > Keyboard Setup Assistant, then press the key to the right of the Shift key on the left side.

If not available use the procedure of Stefano.

Had the same issue. The easiest and fastest way to change this is just to press the other key! It's so simple!

Just head to System Preferences > Keyboard, then click on Change Keyboard Type...

This opens the Keyboard Setup Assistant.

Now when it asks you to "Press the key to the right of the shift key on the left side." Don't do it! Just press the ^/° key instead. It will set up the keyboard in the correct way.

Finally, I Installed Karabiner and it worked like a charm. After installation, you have to add some permissions described here:

https://github.com/pqrs-org/Karabiner-Elements/issues/3011#issuecomment-1163033840

Finally, I opened Karabiner, then I toggled on the button "treat as a built-in keyboard", that is enough and you don't need to map any key

I'm adding this on top of the existing answers because I just found this thread searching for the same problem:

1. Go to "System Preferences > Keyboard" and click the "Change Keyboard Type..." button at the bottom
2. Click "Continue" and then press the < button on your keyboard
3. The selected entry should read "ISO (International) ISO/IEC 9995 standard keyboard"
4. If it does, click "Done"

IMPORTANT: The option you select can have different text in the line below the radio button! This is important:

If you get the opposite of the table on your system, you need to press the opposite button this one time. I'm guessing the reason is because when your keyboard type is already incorrect detected, pressing the right button sends the wrong/opposite keycode to the detection wizard.

For me (German keyboard, using "German - Standard" as the Input Method) I had to use "ISO (International) ISO/IEC 9995 standard keyboard". The Macintosh variant would flip the keys as described above.