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Sudheendra chari
Sudheendra chari

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I Got Tired of My YubiKey Typing OTPs Everywhere — So I Fixed It

#security #yubikey #otp #swift

My YubiKey Kept Spamming OTPs — So I Built a macOS Menu Bar Fix

If you use a YubiKey on macOS, you probably know this moment.

You plug it in.

Your cursor happens to be in Slack.

And suddenly:

cccccccbhtnlrnhjkgljuhv...
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Your YubiKey just typed an OTP into the wrong window.

It’s not dangerous.

It’s just… annoying.

After the third time this happened to me mid-conversation, I went looking for a clean way to quickly disable the OTP interface — without digging into CLI commands every time.

That’s how YubiToggle was born.

The Problem

YubiKeys expose multiple USB interfaces (OTP, FIDO, CCID, etc.).

When OTP is enabled, pressing the YubiKey sends a one-time password as keyboard input. That’s great when you intend it.

It’s less great when:

  • Your cursor is in Slack
  • Or in a terminal
  • Or in a production shell 😅

Yes, you can disable OTP using ykman:

ykman config usb --disable OTP --force
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But that’s not something I wanted to do manually every time.

What About YubiSwitch?

There’s already a macOS utility called YubiSwitch that solves this problem.

But for me:

  • It felt outdated
  • Development activity seemed minimal
  • The UX wasn’t very “macOS-native”

Instead of forking it, I decided to build something small, modern, and focused.

🔐 YubiToggle

YubiToggle is a minimal macOS menu bar app that lets you toggle your YubiKey’s OTP interface on and off with a single click.

It lives quietly in your menu bar:

  • No Dock icon
  • No background daemon
  • No unnecessary features

Features

  • One-click OTP enable/disable
  • Clear visual state:
    • 🟢 OTP enabled
    • ⚪ OTP disabled
    • 🔵 Syncing
    • 🟠 Error
  • Auto-syncs with hardware every 10 seconds
  • Optional launch at login
  • Optional system notifications
  • Universal binary (Apple Silicon + Intel)

Built With

  • Swift 6
  • SwiftUI
  • MenuBarExtra (no Dock presence)
  • ykman CLI under the hood

The app is intentionally a thin wrapper around a well-maintained CLI, paired with a clean native UI.

How It Works

YubiToggle checks the current device state using:

ykman info
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And toggles OTP via:

ykman config usb --disable OTP --force
ykman config usb --enable OTP --force
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All CLI calls are wrapped in async Swift code so the UI stays responsive.

To avoid UI drift (for example, if the device is modified externally), the app refreshes the hardware state every 10 seconds.

Project Structure

The project is intentionally simple:

YubiToggle/
├── Package.swift
└── Sources/YubiToggle/
    ├── YubiToggleApp.swift
    ├── CLI/YubiCLI.swift
    ├── Models/YubiKeyDevice.swift
    ├── ViewModels/YubiKeyViewModel.swift
    └── Views/
        ├── MenuBarView.swift
        └── SettingsView.swift
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No over-engineering — just enough separation to keep things clean and readable.

A Few Design Decisions

  • macOS 13+ only
    I chose modern SwiftUI APIs over backward compatibility.

  • Use ykman instead of raw HID access
    Let Yubico handle device complexity; I focus on UX.

  • Not notarized (yet)
    macOS will ask you to “Open Anyway” on first launch. This is a one-time step.

Installation

Homebrew 

brew tap sudheendrachari/tap
brew install --cask yubitoggle
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Manual

Download the DMG from GitHub releases and drag the app to Applications.

Repository:
https://github.com/sudheendrachari/yubi-toggle

Why Open Source?

This is the kind of tool that:

  • Solves a small but real annoyance
  • Doesn’t need to be commercial
  • Can benefit from community feedback

If you use a YubiKey on macOS and have ever wished you could quickly disable OTP without touching Terminal, this might be useful.

What I Learned

Even tiny utilities benefit from:

  • A clear, narrow scope
  • Native UX
  • Minimal features done well
  • Treating CLI tools as first-class building blocks

Sometimes the best apps are just good interfaces over solid existing tools.

If you build macOS utilities or work with hardware-backed security tools, I’d love to hear what you’ve built — or what’s annoyed you enough to consider building something yourself.

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