What an automatic key presser is for
An automatic key presser stands in for a finger resting on one key. Some jobs want that finger to be quick, such as tapping E to gather in a game. Many more want it to be patient: nudging an app every few minutes so it does not go idle, advancing a slide or a log viewer at a fixed pace, or feeding a test harness one Enter at a time.
Rapid Key handles both ends with the same three controls. How many presses takes a number, In every switches between Second, Minute and Hour, and Which key opens a list of keys to choose from. A line under the big number turns that into a gap you can read, so 10 presses an hour shows up as one press every six minutes before you commit to it.
Because the pace is stated per hour when you want it to be, you never have to work out that six minutes is 360,000 milliseconds.
Press a key every X seconds or minutes
Wait before the first press in Settings decides how long that countdown lasts. Three seconds is the default, and the slider runs from 0 to 15.
- Enter a value in How many presses, anything from 1 to 10,000.
- Choose Second, Minute or Hour under In every, and read the gap line to confirm the pace.
- Open Which key and pick the key, for example Space, Enter, an arrow, a number pad key or F5.
- Press the start button or Ctrl+F7, then click into the window that should receive the presses while it counts down.
- Stop it with Ctrl+F7 from wherever you are, the Stop button, or Turn off in the tray menu.
An automatic keyboard presser that games can read
Plenty of pressers send a virtual key code, which desktop apps understand and many games simply ignore, because games read the keyboard at a lower level. Rapid Key sends each press as a hardware scancode and marks keys such as the arrows, Home and End as extended, the way a physical keyboard reports them. That is why the arrow keys move you in-game rather than typing digits on the number pad.
There is a limit worth knowing. Games protected by kernel-level anti-cheat can block simulated input, whatever tool sends it. Check a game's rules before automating it online.
Leaving it running for hours
A slow rate only makes sense if the program can sit quietly through a long shift. Closing the window sends it to the notification area and pressing continues, so the taskbar stays clear. Turn on Start in the tray and it opens there in the first place, ready to be started with the shortcut.
Whenever you come back, the shortcut still works from any window. If Ctrl+F7 is taken in the app you are driving, record a different combination under Start and stop with. Key sound gives a short tick on each press so you can confirm it is still going without looking; above ten presses a second it stays silent.
