Press any key on your Chromebook and watch it light up on a ChromeOS keyboard layout — the top-row Back, Refresh, brightness and volume keys, the Search key and the arrow cluster. A key that never lights up points to a hardware fault or a keyboard setting.
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Find out whether one key, one row or the whole keyboard has stopped responding. If a key lights up here, the hardware is fine and the problem is a setting or an app.
Check every key on a classroom or loaner Chromebook in under a minute before handing it out or sending it for repair — no extension, no admin rights.
Compare what you press with what lights up. If the right key lights but the wrong character appears, your input method or keyboard language is set to a different layout.
Plugging a USB or Bluetooth keyboard into a Chromebook? Confirm the Windows key acts as Search and that every key reaches ChromeOS.
Click the keyboard area, then press every key once. Each key turns green as soon as your Chromebook reports it to the browser.
Test the top row: Back, Forward, Refresh, Fullscreen, Overview, brightness and volume. If the volume or brightness changes, the key works — hold Search while pressing it to send F1–F10 instead.
Press Search (where Caps Lock sits on other laptops), both Ctrl and Alt keys and all four arrows, including the small up/down pair.
Hold several keys together to check rollover, use Reset to start over, and press Esc to pause capture.
Open this page on the Chromebook, click the keyboard area and press each key. Keys that work turn green on the ChromeOS layout, and the progress panel shows how many are left. Keys that never light up are not reaching the system.
The usual causes are accessibility settings such as sticky keys, a different input method being active, debris under the keys, or a hardware fault. Restart the Chromebook first, then test here: keys that light up are working, so the problem is a setting.
Almost always the keyboard language is set to another layout (for example UK instead of US, or AZERTY). Check Settings › Device › Keyboard and inputs. On this tester, switch the Letters layout to compare legends with what your keyboard prints.
Chromebooks put the Search (Launcher) key where Caps Lock usually is. Press Alt + Search to toggle Caps Lock, or remap the Search key under keyboard settings.
Press Ctrl + Show windows (the Overview key in the top row) for a full-screen screenshot, or Ctrl + Shift + Show windows to capture part of the screen.
Yes. Hold Search and press a top-row key to send F1–F10, or turn on “Treat top-row keys as function keys” in keyboard settings. This tester accepts both, so each top-row key lights up either way.
Yes. Any USB or Bluetooth keyboard works. On ChromeOS the Windows or Command key acts as Search, so it lights the Search key on the layout.
