Move Esc key on touch bar?

I spent some time today with BetterTouchTool (BTT) and seem to have sorted things. All I was looking to achieve was to get rid of the ESC key that is way too sensitive.

With BTT installed, here is what I did:

1. Click "TouchBar"
2. Click "General Touch Bar Settings"
   1. Check "Enable Touch Bar Support"
   2. Uncheck "Show macOS Control Strip"
   3. Check Show "BTT icon in Control Strip"
   4. All Other items are unchecked
   5. Click Close
      
      
3. Click "+ TouchBar Button"
   1. Give the button a Name...I chose "Unhide the Touch Bar with Satan Spawn ESC key"
   2. For "Predefined Action:" choose "Toggle BTT Touch Bar"
      
   3. Click "Advanced Configuration" for the button and choose where you want it to appear...I chose the right side for "Item Placement..."
      

Now my Touch Bar looks like this:

With nothing else on the Touch Bar:

This Touch Bar persists across all apps. If I tap the button, the regular Touch Bar returns with a BTT icon in the Control Strip...it looks like the BTT icon. The only time I don't see the BTT icon is when I have forced display of the regular Function keys in Excel.

I hope this helps.

This touch bar with the over-sensitive Esc key is driving me mad. I constantly and again activate the esc key w/o intent. Apple Support suggested that I used caps lock as esc key... but having two esc key does not help. It indeed made it worse as I found that I sometimes hit caps lock by accident.

Best workaround so far - but it is hopefully not the long term fix.

Apple, pls help:

- Priority 1: allow the "customize control strip" to move (and remove) the esc key to a new location - seems like a very simple and solid fix

- Priority 2: make the the sensitivity configurable - might not help

- Priority 5: show an alert: You pressed esc - do you mean it? [Yes] [No]

br

Not being able to move the Esc button is a flaw in design that surpasses me. And is really annoying

After researching all the answers, I did a more home made solution.

A piece electric tape.

Works perfectly. Take a look at the pic Apple designers, love the design 😉.

this isn't an answer to your question, but it may alleviate the issue a bit. I've seen others putting some type of clear plastic tape cut to the size of the ESC key so they can press it by touch. Maybe if you could feel it before you touch it, you may not click it as much. I am planning to try it myself.

Man, this is driving me nuts!

I am not a touch typer, so my hands obviously don't sit where they are supposed to, and because of this I keep accidentally hitting the ESC key on the touchbar. I have done it 3 times while typing this message it's PEEING me off!

All i need to do is move it to the right about 5cm, or get rid of it altogether, but can't find a way.

REALLY ANNOYING APPLE!!!!!! Sheesh! not all of us are superior beings that can type 200 words a minute.

Come on!!! How about you help us not so expert typers fix this problem!!

I feel your pain ... For me it's a mix of ESC button and Super Giant Touchpad that I sometimes touch by mistake if I sit on my couch with the macbook pro. It feels like good old physical buttons are again better.

Wow, soooo glad I'm not the only one. Love this MacBook, HATE (and I mean HATE) that ESC key! Talk about killing the work flow. Apple, you have to give us a way to turn it off! Make an incredible $4000 laptop, destroy it with one key stroke. Makes you wonder, do any of their engineers actually use these things?

I have definitely got to get me that BetterTouchTool. The placement of the touch bar is frustratingly annoying, who the heck would put it right above the number keys, no spacing, so everytime my hands graze up, I'm dropping the brightness, or giving Siri a poke.... And putting the esc key on there? Idiocy! If Steve were still alive, he'd find the designer of this nightmare and give him a good slap. Sorry folks, I just had to vent...

So I have BetterTouch.

You create a couple widgets or buttons in it for the touch bar AND unselect "Show MacOS control Strip".

This is a bit stupid because you will lose the contextual MacOS.. strip.

What I did is add a 4 fingers swipe down trackpad gesture with the predefined BetterTouch action called "Toggle BetterTouchTool touch bar".

Now I only have to swipe down and I can also see the contextual bar. By default there is no ESC button in this stupid location anymore!

hey, great fix. A question, after i use bettertouch and hide the ESC button, and then relaunch the ESC button to display again, how do I refresh BetterTouch (and hide the escape button again)

Still cant believe Apple released such an issue.

Baffling app. I followed directions and they sort of worked. When I set up the usable touchbar (w/out all the standard nonsense) it looked as expected. The 1st time I toggled the key, the demonic default settings did return as promised. However, I cannot get the usable version back. There is nothing on the "demonic" touchbar that allows one to retoggle. Rerunning the setup instructions does NOT bring the "usable" version of the touchbar back. I'm now wishing I had named the button "Never Touch This".

Problem solved with a shareware utility called BetterTouchTool.

Maje Apple aware of your problems with the ESC function:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html

This is the Mac Pro desktop forum. I requested your post be moved to the MacBook Pro laptop forum

I have this problem too. It's really annoying that the ESC key can't be changed. Would love the option to move it to the right by a few cm.