A free alternative to Joystick Mapper

InputConfig is free on the Mac App Store. There is no paid tier, no trial, and no feature held back behind a purchase.

The source is public on GitHub under the MIT license, so you can read what it does before you install it.

It needs macOS 14 or later and asks for one permission, Accessibility. That is the only prompt.

The current version is 1.4 (28).

None of that makes it the right choice for you. The tools it is measured against below have had years longer to meet the edge cases, and the table is our reading of them, not theirs. Read it, then go and look at them yourself.

Two qualifications on the InputConfig column, because a green cell can hide a caveat. Gyroscope and motion means Sony controllers. macOS does not expose the motion sensors in the Nintendo Switch Pro controller or the Joy-Cons, so their buttons and sticks work while their gyroscopes cannot drive a binding. Light bar control means the DualSense, the DualSense Edge, and the DualShock 4, which are the controllers that have a light bar in the first place.

Everything else in the table is a difference in what counts as an input and what counts as an output, which is the real dividing line between these tools. A controller button becoming a keystroke is the part they all do.

One row you may have expected is missing: whether each of these is still being updated. That is a judgement about somebody else's project, it ages faster than anything else on this page, and it is better checked than repeated. On the Mac App Store, the Information block on a listing gives the date the app was last updated. On an open source project, the date of the newest release or commit does the same job. InputConfig's answer to that question is version 1.4 (28), with a public commit history you can read the same way.

No paid tier and no trial. There is one version of the app and everyone gets all of it. Nothing is grayed out, nothing counts down, and no feature asks for an upgrade when you click it.

An optional tip jar that unlocks nothing. You can leave a tip inside the app if you want to. It changes nothing about what the app does. Tipping and not tipping produce the same software.

No account. There is no sign-up, no license key, and no email address to hand over. You install it and it works.

No telemetry, because it cannot phone home. This is stronger than a promise. The app is sandboxed, and its entitlements file contains no network key at all, which means outbound connections are impossible rather than merely unused. There is no analytics library in the source and no code anywhere in it that opens a connection. Usage statistics exist, and they are a file on your own Mac.

One permission prompt. Accessibility, which is what lets the app type and move the pointer on your behalf. It deliberately does not use Input Monitoring, so that prompt never appears. Bluetooth usage strings are declared for reading wireless controllers.

MIT license. The full source is on GitHub. If this project ever stops being maintained, the code does not disappear with it, which is the specific problem that sends people looking for an alternative in the first place.

• It is barely localized. The bundle declares thirteen locales, but only about forty strings are actually translated, and they are the menu bar and the common buttons. The binding editor, the settings text, the twenty-five help guides, and every preset name are English only. If you need the app itself in your language, this is not yet that app.
• No motion on Nintendo controllers. macOS does not expose the motion sensors in the Switch Pro controller or the Joy-Cons. Their buttons and sticks map fine. Gyroscope bindings on those controllers do not work, and no software on the Mac can change that.
• One touchpad gesture, not a gesture set. On a DualSense or DualShock 4 touchpad, exactly two fingers are tracked independently and there is exactly one recognized gesture, the two-finger tap. Everything else is done with cursor control and tap regions you draw yourself. If you want swipes and pinches, that is not here.
• Tap the Mac needs specific hardware. The sensor it reads is published on M2 and later, plus M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 Ultra. A base M1 MacBook Air or M1 13-inch MacBook Pro does not have it, and on those machines the feature simply does not appear. Which Macs can do this.
• Spoken phrases follow your system audio. Speech plays through whatever output your Mac is currently using. The app cannot pin it to a controller speaker; you choose that output yourself in System Settings, Sound.
• macOS 14 or later. If you are keeping an older Mac on an older macOS on purpose, one of the other tools may be the one that still runs for you.
• It is younger than the rest. This is version 1.4. Some of the tools in the table have had years to meet edge cases this one has not run into yet. That is a real argument for testing before you commit a setup to it.