Questions

How to connect and use a racing wheel on a Mac

InputConfig is completely free on the Mac App Store. You don't have to make an account, there are no subscriptions, and nothing is locked. Optimized for Apple silicon.

A racing wheel works on a Mac, with limits. Plug the wheel in by USB, with a USB-C adapter on a MacBook, connect its power supply, and set its mode switch to the position the Mac can read. The Mac then sees most wheels with no driver. Whether a game uses it is the hard part: since macOS 13 Ventura, Apple supports a few popular wheels, and it named the Logitech G29 and G920, but only games written for that support see them. Most other wheels are plain USB devices that the Mac reads and most games ignore.

I make InputConfig, a free Mac app that turns a wheel and pedals into the keys and mouse movement a keyboard racer expects. InputConfig reads Logitech wheels in full, separate pedals included, puts Thrustmaster wheels on the same axes, and reads every axis of other wheels at full resolution. It does not do force feedback, and it cannot make a game think a wheel is plugged in.

On this page

1. Connect it
2. Know what macOS does with a racing wheel
3. Check whether your racing game takes a wheel
4. Check which wheels InputConfig reads
5. Turn a wheel and pedals into keys with InputConfig
   1. Step 1: Connect it and look
   2. Step 2: Set up the steering
   3. Step 3: Set up the gas pedal
   4. Step 4: Add the brake and buttons
   5. Step 5: Make it automatic
6. What it cannot do: force feedback
7. Add pedals, shifters and button boxes
8. The short version
9. Questions

Connect it

1. Plug the pedals and the shifter into the wheel base, not into the Mac. On most wheels that is where they go.
2. With the wheel unplugged, set the mode switch. On a Logitech G29, the switch on the wheel goes to PS3. On a Thrustmaster base, use PC. A T300 in its PS4 or PS5 position does not declare its wheel or pedals at all. On a wheel with an Xbox position and a PC position, use PC. A G923 for PlayStation, or a G29 another machine left in a lower mode, is switched to its own mode by InputConfig when it connects.
3. Connect the power supply, then the USB cable, straight into the Mac or a plain USB-C to USB-A adapter rather than a hub.

• You: Hold Option, open the Apple menu, choose System Information, and look under USB.
• macOS: Lists the wheel if the cable and the wheel are fine.
• Check: If it is listed, the question is the game. A wheel never appears under Game Controllers in System Settings. That list is for gamepads.

If it is not listed, or it is listed and will not steer, the racing wheel not working page goes through each cause.

Know what macOS does with a racing wheel

There are two paths, and the one your wheel takes decides almost everything.

• Apple's racing wheel support, macOS 13 and later. Apple added support in macOS Ventura for popular wheels, pedals and shifters, and named the Logitech G29 and G920. A game has to be written for it, and Apple's developer documentation says only one app can receive a wheel's input at a time.
• Everything else. Thrustmaster, Fanatec, Moza, PXN, Hori, and older Logitech wheels such as the G27 and Driving Force GT reach the Mac as standard USB HID devices, the same kind of device as a joystick. The Mac reads the wheel, the pedals and the buttons, but a game only uses them if it reads HID devices itself, and few Mac games do.

Wheels that start in Xbox mode, the Logitech G920 and the Xbox version of the G923 among them, are not HID devices, so a game has to be written for Apple's racing wheel support to use them, and InputConfig reads those two through it.

Check whether your racing game takes a wheel

Most of the sims people buy a wheel for have no Mac version. iRacing, Assetto Corsa, Assetto Corsa Competizione and the F1 series do not run natively on macOS, and Gran Turismo is PlayStation only. The PC games reach a Mac through a stream from a PC, a cloud service, or a Windows wrapper such as CrossOver, and whether a wheel survives that trip depends on the stream or the wrapper, not on the Mac.

Native Mac games with controller settings of their own are the other route. Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator run natively, and Mac players use wheels in them, with mixed reports on newer macOS and Apple silicon. One Mac player on the SCS Software forum reported a G29 that showed up in Euro Truck Simulator 2's controls on macOS 14 and did nothing when turned, where the same wheel had worked on an Intel iMac running macOS 11.

• You: Open the game's own controls screen and turn the wheel.
• The game: Lists the wheel and shows the steering move, if it reads it.
• Check: If the wheel steers, you are done and need nothing else. If the game ignores it, or lists it and nothing moves, turn the wheel into keys, which every keyboard-driven racer understands.

Check which wheels InputConfig reads

InputConfig reads most wheels as raw HID devices, the way it reads a joystick, and the Logitech G920 and G923 for Xbox through Apple's racing wheel support.

The first step below takes a minute and tells you whether yours works.

Turn a wheel and pedals into keys with InputConfig

Step 1: Connect it and look

• You: Plug the wheel in, open InputConfig and open a preset.
• InputConfig: The Live Visualizer moves as you turn the wheel and press the pedals.
• Check: If nothing moves, tick the wheel under InputConfig, Devices in the menu bar, and the app opens it directly.

Step 2: Set up the steering

• You: In the preset, turn on One-Stick Driving under Accessibility Tools Suite. Choose Custom, set the controller slot to the wheel's, and step the Steer axis number until its live bar follows the wheel. On every Logitech and Thrustmaster wheel it is 0.
• InputConfig: Steers with Mouse (analog), the smoother of the two, for games that steer from the mouse, or Keys (A / D), which it pulses so a small turn gives a gentle steer.
• Check: Bring the Deadzone down to a few percent. Its 12 percent default is measured on the wheel's whole half turn, so on a 900 degree wheel it is about 54 degrees each way before the car steers.

Step 3: Set up the gas pedal

• You: Step the Throttle axis number until its bar follows the gas pedal (5 on a Logitech or Thrustmaster wheel), and turn on Throttle axis is a trigger (rests at one end).
• InputConfig: Pulses the accelerate key, W by default, holding it longer in each pulse the further you press. A pedal that reads -1 to 1, as many non-Logitech wheels and pedal sets do, is spread over its whole travel once it is seen at rest.
• Check: If the bar runs backward, turn on Invert throttle.

Step 4: Add the brake and buttons

• You: Add a row, press Scan, push the brake pedal, and send the game's brake key, S in most games. Scan the paddles, shifter and buttons onto rows too: shift up and down, handbrake, look back, reset.
• InputConfig: Sends each key while its control is pressed.
• Check: Watch the brake row in the Live Visualizer with your foot off and on before you rely on it.

Step 5: Make it automatic

Under Automation & Gaming Utilities, add the game to the preset's apps, and turn on automatic switching in Settings, Advanced. The layout then runs whenever the game is in front. See Auto-Switch.

Keys are on or off at heart, so pulsed steering is close to a wheel but not the same. The one-stick driving guide has the game settings that help, such as an automatic gearbox. With a Logitech wheel, the built-in Racing Game preset is another start: its steering, gas and brake rows sit on the axes a Logitech wheel uses, and a Thrustmaster wheel uses the same ones, so lower the steering rows' deadzone with Adjust live and Scan the wheel's buttons onto the rows you want.

What it cannot do: force feedback

InputConfig does not drive force feedback. On a Mac, only a game that supports your wheel itself can. With the wheel mapped to keys, the motor gives no resistance, so a force feedback wheel turns freely apart from any spring it has.

The maker's settings app, which sets rotation, force feedback strength and firmware, is made for Windows for most brands. Check the maker's download page for a macOS version, and do firmware updates on a Windows PC.

Add pedals, shifters and button boxes

Pedals, a shifter or a button box on its own USB cable is a separate device, and every connected device gets its own slot, so one preset can hold all of them. They do not have to drive a car: a pedal can hold a push-to-talk key and a button box makes a macro deck. Racing wheel pedals as keys covers how each kind of pedal reads and the jobs it can do.

The short version

• Connect. Plug the pedals into the base, set the right mode switch, connect power then USB, and check System Information, USB.
• Try the game first. If its controls screen sees the wheel steer, you need nothing else.
• Map the rest. Use One-Stick Driving and Scan in InputConfig, with no force feedback.

Most of the work is the mode switch, so set it before you plug in.

Questions

Related

• How to use a Logitech G29 on a Mac
• How to use a Thrustmaster wheel on a Mac
• One-stick driving
• One-stick driving, set up properly
• Racing wheel tester
• Logitech G27, G25, Driving Force GT and older wheels on a Mac
• Does the Logitech G920 work on a Mac?
• American Truck Simulator on a Mac with a controller
• Euro Truck Simulator 2 on a Mac with a controller

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Updated October 29, 2026