Pearipherals is a free, open-source Windows tray app for the Apple Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad 2. It adds Mac-style function keys, three-finger trackpad gestures, battery levels, natural scrolling, and display brightness controls in one portable EXE.
Download v1.2.1 for Windows (unsigned EXE) · Release notes and SHA-256 checksum
For Windows 10/11 x64, Apple Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad 2 over Bluetooth. Trackpad pointer movement and two-finger scrolling require the separately installed mac-precision-touchpad driver. Not every hardware revision or setup has been validated; see the release notes for testing limits.
Unsigned beta: Windows cannot verify the publisher. SmartScreen may warn; Smart App Control may block it without a per-app bypass. Do not disable system-wide security protections to run it. Read the security warning.
Official website · Quick start · Requirements · FAQ · Magic Utilities comparison · Removal guide
Use the versioned link above for this beta; GitHub's Latest release is still v1.1.
| Feature | What it does |
|---|---|
| "Tragic" Keyboard | Mac-style function row for an Apple Magic Keyboard on Windows |
| "Tragic" Trackpad | Three-finger swipes or drag for Magic Trackpad 2 on Windows |
| "Moodio" Display | Brightness keys for Apple Studio Display and other monitors |
| Battery monitoring | Separate keyboard/trackpad battery levels and low-battery alerts |
| Portable Windows app | One EXE, local configuration, no account, no telemetry |
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| F1 / F2 | Display brightness down / up through "Moodio" |
| F3 | Task View (Mission Control) |
| F4 | Windows Search (Spotlight) |
| F5 | Passthrough |
| F6 | Open the Windows Snipping Tool selection overlay |
| F7 / F8 / F9 | Previous / Play-Pause / Next |
| F10 / F11 / F12 | Mute / Volume down / Volume up |
Hold Ctrl, Alt, Shift, or Win to send the original F-key. Shortcuts such as Alt+F4 and Ctrl+F5 continue to work. You can turn the entire layer on or off from the tray menu. F6 without a modifier opens the Windows Snipping Tool selection overlay so you can select a region. Windows handles the selected image, copies it to the clipboard, and saves it according to the Snipping Tool auto-save setting. Pearipherals does not capture or save the image itself. Modifier+F6 passes the original F6 key through instead.
The Magic Trackpad 2 Bluetooth driver reports contacts one at a time. That stops Windows from reliably detecting native three-finger gestures. "Tragic" Trackpad reassembles the Raw Input contact data and provides three modes:
- Swipes
- swipe down to minimize all windows
- swipe up to restore minimized windows
- swipe left or right to open Task View
- Drag for macOS-style three-finger dragging and text selection
- Off to disable Pearipherals' custom three-finger handling
Two-finger scrolling and normal pointer movement remain with the Windows Precision Touchpad driver. Pearipherals also has a natural-scrolling toggle. Windows reads that setting when the trackpad connects, so reconnect the trackpad or reboot after changing it.
F1 and F2 try three brightness methods in order:
- Apple Studio Display USB HID control
- DDC/CI for compatible external monitors
- GPU gamma-ramp dimming as a fallback
This gives the brightness keys a useful fallback on displays that do not expose normal DDC controls. A video-only USB-C-to-DisplayPort cable cannot carry the Studio Display's USB control data, so Pearipherals uses the available fallback in that setup.
Pearipherals shows the Apple Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad battery levels as separate entries in the tray menu. Battery polling is slow and isolated, and the app reopens devices for each poll instead of keeping Bluetooth HID handles open while a device sleeps. Polls run every five minutes while either device returns battery data, backing off to fifteen minutes when neither does.
Both devices have low-battery Windows notifications at 20% or below, with one critical escalation at 5% or below. The first fresh low reading after launch warns too. Alerts are tracked separately for each device and combined into one notification when both need a warning in the same poll. Repeated polls and reconnects do not repeat a warning; a fresh reading of 25% or above rearms that device. Charging/fully-charged reports suppress warnings. Missing, invalid, stale, or more-than-ten-minute-old readings never become a false 0% alert.
Notifications are best effort: Windows notification settings, Do Not Disturb / Focus Assist, or Explorer can hide or suppress them, and Pearipherals cannot confirm display. A reported notification exception is retried on a later poll, not in a tight loop. The app must be running and receiving fresh battery data; it cannot guarantee a warning before a sleeping or disconnected device dies.
- Windows 10 or Windows 11
- Apple Magic Keyboard connected over Bluetooth
- Apple Magic Trackpad 2 connected over Bluetooth
- For trackpad pointer movement and two-finger scrolling, install the free, signed mac-precision-touchpad driver once
The keyboard mappings, battery display, and monitor controls do not require that trackpad driver.
- For Magic Trackpad 2, install the mac-precision-touchpad driver.
- Read the v1.2.1 unsigned beta release notes for security warnings, checksums, and update/rollback instructions, then use the beta download above.
- Put it anywhere you control, such as
C:\Tools\Pearipherals. - Run it. Pearipherals enables autostart and applies the touchpad settings its gestures need on first launch, then shows a notification explaining what changed and where to undo it.
Pearipherals is portable. Its configuration and optional error log sit beside
the EXE as pearipherals.json and pearipherals.err.log.
Pearipherals needs reports from Apple hardware beyond the maintainer's setup. If you try the beta, submit a short compatibility report, including when everything works. A working setup is as useful as a failed setup because it tells us which device revisions and connection paths are reliable. The form asks only for product-level details and warns against sharing serial numbers, Bluetooth addresses, raw HID data, or other private information.
An unsigned prerelease has no Authenticode signature, so Windows cannot verify its publisher identity. Windows may identify it as an unknown or untrusted publisher, Microsoft Defender SmartScreen may warn about it, and Smart App Control may block it completely. Smart App Control does not offer a per-app Run anyway exception. Do not disable a system-wide Windows security feature just to run an unsigned build.
This warning is about publisher identity and software reputation; it is not by itself a malware verdict. Pearipherals is public so you can inspect the source and build it locally. Official release provenance is documented in the Code signing policy.
The project applied for free open-source signing through SignPath Foundation. The application was not accepted because Pearipherals is still new and does not yet have enough established public usage. We plan to apply again after the user base grows. Until trusted signing is available, every downloadable binary will be labeled accurately. New unsigned downloads published under this policy are GitHub prereleases accompanied by a SHA-256 checksum. The checksum can detect a file mismatch or corruption; it does not authenticate the publisher, establish that the program is safe, or substitute for a digital signature.
- The tray menu controls the function-key layer, gesture mode, natural scrolling, autostart, and touchpad setting recovery.
- Quit stops input hooks, Raw Input handling, and battery polling.
- Original Windows touchpad values are backed up before Pearipherals changes them and can be restored from the tray.
- A single-instance guard makes accidental double launches safe.
- Startup failures are retried and written to
pearipherals.err.log. - Moving the EXE is supported: run it once from the new location and the autostart path updates.
- Pearipherals has no account, analytics, telemetry, or automatic uploads. See the privacy policy.
All of this lives in the tray menu and none of it does anything until you click it.
- About / status… shows the exact version, the full build identity, whether
this is a frozen or source build, your Windows version, and the current state
of the configuration file, battery paths,
AmtPtpHidFilterservice registration, Raw Input listener, gesture mode, touchpad settings, scroll direction, autostart, and removal readiness. Every value is a fixed label. It reports what Pearipherals can currently observe — a sleeping Bluetooth device simply reads as not detected, never as broken or missing. - Save a diagnostic report writes
pearipherals-diagnostics.jsonnext to the executable so you can read it before sending it anywhere. It contains a fixed whitelist of the same product-level labels shown in About / status: no local paths, no usernames, no Bluetooth or HID identifiers, no registry values, no raw configuration, and no log contents. Pearipherals never uploads it — sharing it is entirely your decision. - Open documentation and Report a problem open fixed project links in your browser, and only when clicked. There is no background update check.
- Prepare for removal… asks for confirmation first (No is the default button), then turns off the Mac F-row and three-finger gestures, releases any in-flight gesture, removes and verifies every start-with-Windows entry including legacy names, and restores your backed-up Windows touchpad settings. It reports exactly which steps completed; a partial run is never reported as success. It does not delete any file and does not quit the app — you choose Quit when you are ready.
When you upgrade, Pearipherals records the previous version and the current one in its local configuration so About / status can show that a version change was observed. Nothing about that is transmitted.
Run Pearipherals once from its new location. It imports the old
magicsuite.json settings and removes the legacy autostart entry. You can then
delete the old MagicSuite EXE.
- Select Prepare for removal… and confirm. This reverses every persistent change in one step and tells you if anything could not be completed. Resolve any reported restoration failure before deleting your settings backup. You can still do it by hand instead: untick Start with Windows, set the 3-finger gesture to Off, then use Touchpad settings → Restore original Windows settings.
- Select Quit.
- Delete the EXE (
Pearipherals-1.2.1-unsigned.exefor this beta, orPearipherals.exe) and its adjacent runtime files, if present:pearipherals.json,pearipherals.err.log, andpearipherals-diagnostics.json.
This removes Pearipherals, its autostart entry, and its local configuration/log. The Restore action replays the Windows touchpad values backed up before Pearipherals first managed them.
The separately installed trackpad driver is not removed by deleting Pearipherals.
python -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\pip install -r requirements.txt
set PEARIPHERALS_VERSION=1.2.1
build.batThe portable Windows executable is written to dist\Pearipherals.exe. The
release workflow uses a complete hash-locked dependency set and adds Windows
product/version metadata before signing submission.
- Keyboard function row: a low-level keyboard hook (
WH_KEYBOARD_LL) intercepts F1-F12 and injects the chosen media, brightness, or Windows action. Modifier-held presses pass through untouched. Injected events are tagged so the hook cannot loop. - Display brightness: Apple Studio Display USB HID is tried first, followed
by DDC/CI through
dxva2.dll, then GPU gamma-ramp dimming. - Trackpad gestures: Raw Input is registered for the Precision Touchpad usage
(
0x0D/0x05). Pearipherals parses contact data throughHidP_*, filters padding and stale contacts, and feeds stable contacts into its gesture state machine. A low-level mouse hook suppresses leaked pointer motion only while a valid custom gesture owns the input. - Battery monitoring: Apple vendor HID battery reports are queried separately for the keyboard and trackpad, then published to the Windows tray thread.
Pearipherals uses no kernel code and does not require administrator rights.
Looking for a free Magic Utilities alternative? Pearipherals is a free, MIT-licensed companion for the documented Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad 2 Bluetooth setup on Windows 10/11 x64. It provides function-key controls, custom three-finger gestures and battery monitoring, but it is not a driver or a feature-for-feature replacement. Trackpad pointer movement and two-finger scrolling require the separate mac-precision-touchpad driver. The current beta is unsigned and hardware coverage is still being validated.
Magic Utilities provides its own Windows drivers and documents Bluetooth and wired USB support, including Magic Mouse support. Check its official device and feature documentation if you need that broader scope. Pearipherals does not claim Magic Mouse support or validated wired USB input. Choose based on your exact hardware, required features and security requirements; do not assume the two products are interchangeable.
The documented setup is Magic Trackpad 2 over Bluetooth on Windows 10/11 x64, with the separately installed mac-precision-touchpad driver for pointer movement and two-finger scrolling. Pearipherals adds custom three-finger gestures, natural-scrolling control and battery display. Not every hardware revision or setup has been validated.
Pearipherals gives supported Bluetooth Magic Keyboards Mac-style brightness, Task View, Search, Snipping Tool, media and volume actions. F5 passes through unchanged. Hold Ctrl, Alt, Shift or Win to send the original F-key. The Fn key is not exposed over this Bluetooth path.
Open the Pearipherals tray menu to see separate keyboard and trackpad battery readings when supported devices provide data. Low-battery notifications trigger on fresh readings at 20% or below, with one critical escalation at 5% or below. Warnings are best effort, not a guarantee before a battery dies.
Sleeping or disconnected devices may not provide fresh data. Missing or stale readings are not treated as zero. Windows notification settings, Do Not Disturb and Explorer can suppress alerts. Check About / status in the tray; the app must be running and receiving fresh readings.
Pearipherals may suit people looking for free function-key controls, custom three-finger gestures and battery monitoring for the documented Bluetooth setup. It is MIT-licensed, with no paid tier. It is not a feature-for-feature replacement or a trackpad driver: Magic Trackpad 2 still needs the separate mac-precision-touchpad driver. The current Pearipherals beta is unsigned and not every hardware revision has been validated.
No. It is a companion utility and does not bundle or replace mac-precision-touchpad. Install that driver separately for Magic Trackpad 2 pointer movement and two-finger scrolling. Keyboard mappings, battery display and monitor controls do not require the trackpad driver.
The documented setup is Bluetooth on Windows 10/11 x64. USB-C hardware revisions, wired USB input and Windows on ARM are not claimed as validated. Do not assume support from the Magic Keyboard or Magic Trackpad product name alone.
Choose Swipes for down to minimize, up to restore and left/right for Task View; choose Drag for three-finger dragging and text selection, or Off. The natural-scrolling toggle requires a trackpad reconnect or reboot. Four-finger gestures are not handled.
Pearipherals tries Apple Studio Display USB HID control, then DDC/CI for compatible monitors, then GPU gamma-ramp dimming. Results depend on the display and connection. A video-only USB-C-to-DisplayPort cable carries no USB control data; gamma dimming is a software fallback, not native backlight control.
The current v1.2.1 beta is unsigned, so Windows cannot verify its publisher. SmartScreen may warn and Smart App Control may block it without a per-app exception. Do not disable system-wide security protections. Public source and a SHA-256 checksum do not replace a trusted digital signature or guarantee safety.
No account is required. The app has no telemetry or automatic uploads. Optional diagnostic reports are saved locally only when requested, for you to review before choosing to share them.
Use Prepare for removal from the tray and inspect every result. Resolve restoration failures before deleting your settings backup, then choose Quit and delete the EXE and adjacent runtime files. First launch enables autostart and applies touchpad settings; removal restores the backed-up settings and removes startup entries. The separate trackpad driver is not removed.
Use the GitHub compatibility report form for working or failing setups, or the bug report form for a problem. Include your Windows version, product model, connection type and what worked or failed. Do not share serial numbers, Bluetooth addresses or raw HID data; review any diagnostics before posting.
Report compatibility · Report a bug
- Natural-scroll changes require a trackpad reconnect or reboot because Windows caches the setting when the device initializes.
- Four-finger gestures are not handled yet.
- The Magic Keyboard Fn key is not exposed to Windows over this Bluetooth path, so Pearipherals uses modifiers to access the original F-keys.
- Trusted public code signing is not available yet.
Pearipherals is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Apple Inc. Apple, Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad, and Studio Display are trademarks of Apple Inc. and are used only to describe supported hardware.