F4 Key Not Opening Launchpad

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F4 Key Not Opening Launchpad

Bought a used Macbook Pro (Mid-2010) recently and everything works flawlessly on it, except 1 thing....F4 does not bring up the launchpad.

I went into keyboard settings to try and set the F4 key, but no luck.

Some quick googling brought me to several older threads that all suggested going into terminal and pasting this command in there and then restarting:

rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.symbolichotkeys.plist

Unfortunately, that didn't work either. Any other suggestions?

Posted on Apr 25, 2018 5:02 PM

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Answer 1

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leroydouglas

Community+ 2025

Level 10

198,804 points

Apr 26, 2018 9:51 AM in response to WAMiller

To trouble shoot further you can

Try a SafeBoot https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201262

Takes noticeable longer to get to the login screen as certain system caches, dynamic loader cache etc get cleared and rebuilt. This test will tell you if third party inference; extensions etc are not loaded in safe boot mode.

Test issue in another user (or guest user) account https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204443

This will tell you if it a universal issue or isolated to your user/admin account. And your speculation it is a hardware problem w/ the key itself.

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Answer 2

Apr 25, 2018 7:02 PM in response to WAMiller

You do not say what macOS you are running. I can say in High Sierra by default the F4 key brings up launch pad.

Look at >System Preferences>Keyboard>Fn keys

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Answer 3

WAMiller Author

Level 1

25 points

Apr 26, 2018 9:34 AM in response to leroydouglas

Nothing. Tried fn/F4, shift/F4, Cmd/F4, etc, etc.

Every other F key works properly. Its weird that this one doesn't. Wondering if the silicone pad under the key is damaged/worn? Like, maybe the key itself is dead. Seems odd but I guess anything is possible.

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Answer 4

WAMiller Author

Level 1

25 points

Apr 26, 2018 5:26 AM in response to leroydouglas

It's High Sierra. Keyboard settings was the first thing I tried, but it wouldn't let me assign the F4 key to it.

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Answer 5

Apr 26, 2018 9:13 AM in response to WAMiller

WAMiller wrote:

It's High Sierra. Keyboard settings was the first thing I tried, but it wouldn't let me assign the F4 key to it.

And what happens with that F4 key when you hold the fn key??

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F4 Key Not Opening Launchpad

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