MacOS Input Source Manager

May 23, 2026 · View on GitHub

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[中文]

MacOS Input Source Manager

This tool manages macOS input sources from the command line, ideal for integration with vim and emacs(e.g. sis).

macism's main advantage over other similar tools is that it can reliably select CJKV(Chinese/Japanese/Korean/Vietnamese) input source, while with other tools (such as input-source-switcher, im-select from smartim, swim), when you switch to CJKV input source, you will see that the input source icon has already changed in the menu bar, but unless you activate other applications and then switch back, the input source is actually still the same as before.

Install

You can get the executable in any of the following ways:

  • Install from brew

    brew tap laishulu/homebrew
brew install macism

  • compile by yourself

    git clone https://github.com/laishulu/macism
cd macism
make

  • download the executable directly from github

Usage

Show version

macism --version

Show current input source

macism

Switch input source

Switch, with workaround for the MacOS bug

macism SOME_INPUT_SOURCE_ID

Switch, without workaround for the MacOS bug

macism SOME_INPUT_SOURCE_ID 0

Switch with a custom wait time (advanced)

The third argument is the wait time in milliseconds for the workaround (TemporaryWindow). The built-in default is 150ms — empirically the smallest fully-stable value for the CJK race on macOS 26 (Tahoe). With a shorter wait, Squirrel and other CJK IMEs may not fully take over before you start typing, causing the first 1–2 characters to leak as the previous IME.

Older macOS versions only needed ~1ms; the conservative default means existing users don't silently break after an OS upgrade, at the cost of a slightly higher (usually imperceptible) switch latency. If you are on an older macOS and want it snappier, pass a smaller value:

macism SOME_INPUT_SOURCE_ID 50

Empirical numbers on macOS 26.4.1 (continuous switching with immediate typing):

  • 1: ~30–50% race rate
  • 50: ~5% race rate
  • 100: stable in dozens of attempts
  • 150 (default): fully stable

The total switch latency is roughly cold-start + wait, so pick the smallest value that is reliable for you.

Thanks