OS X Keylogging Software

A “keylogger” (or “keystroke recorder”) is an application that monitors your keystrokes, usually recording every key press to a file for later perusal. Some versions will go the extra mile and email the log file to a given address.

I use logKext as a keylogger on my own machines. It’s very handy to have a record of what I’ve typed, and since it makes the log file encrypted, I’m not too worried about someone else getting access to it. The few passwords that I actually have to type (thanks to Keychain) show up in it, but without the password to defeat the Blowfish encryption, the file is not viewable to prying eyes.

It’s great to be able to record all my keystrokes in case of a web application crash (the main reason I use it) or other times when I would have lost what I was writing.

Other keyloggers I’ve found include BackTrack(US$15), ,

Programs like KeystrokeRecorder (US$29), Spector (US$99), eWatch (US$18) and MonitorerX Pro (US$29.95) offer more advanced features such as the ability to capture screenshots as well as keystrokes, and to email the results to a specified address.

To use it, start up the installer and then open the terminal. (/Applications/Terminal).

Run the command


sudo logkextclient

enter your administrative password and then enter the default password marked in the readme. By default Blowfish encryption is used. There is an uninstaller for LogKext put in the root directory of your HD, ( / ) and can be uninstalled even if you’ve forgotten the password for logkext.

changing the password is similar to declaring and defining values in programming using the “set” prefix.

example: changing logKext password


set Password=NewPassword

you can see all variables you can change by typing list.

open will open the log in a text editor, i prefer simply cat’ing the log using “print”.