Short answer: to turn off Sticky Keys in Windows 11, press Win+U, click “Keyboard” and turn off the “Sticky keys” switch. But that switch doesn’t touch the shortcut that turns Sticky Keys on — five presses of Shift. Turn that off too, one click deeper in the same settings, and the pop-up won’t come back. I checked every setting name below against Microsoft’s own help pages in October 2026.
Where to find the switch
Win+U opens the accessibility settings — the part of Windows for people who find a regular mouse, screen or keyboard hard to use. You can also get there through Start → Settings → Accessibility. Click “Keyboard”, and you’ll see three switches at the top of the page:
- “Sticky keys” — five presses of Shift in a row turn it on;
- “Filter keys” — holding the right Shift for eight seconds turns it on;
- “Toggle keys” — it plays a sound when you press Caps Lock, Num Lock or Scroll Lock; holding Num Lock for five seconds turns it on.
If a “Sticky Keys” window asking “Do you want to turn on Sticky Keys?” is already on your screen, just click “No”, and nothing gets turned on. Its link, “Disable this keyboard shortcut in Ease of Access keyboard settings”, opens the same “Keyboard” page, where you can turn that shortcut off. On a laptop, it all works the same way. It’s a Windows setting, not a keyboard one.
What Sticky Keys and Filter Keys actually do
Sticky Keys lets you press a shortcut one key at a time. Press and release Ctrl, then press S, and Windows treats it as Ctrl+S. That’s a real help if pressing two keys at once is hard for you. But if it comes on without you noticing, the keyboard seems broken: one stray tap of Ctrl, and the next letter you type runs a command instead.
Filter Keys makes Windows ignore brief or repeated keystrokes. If it’s on by accident, you’ll notice something else: some characters simply don’t appear unless you hold the key down a little longer.
How to turn Sticky Keys off permanently
The switch turns Sticky Keys off, but the shortcut stays on, and the next five presses of Shift bring the pop-up right back. To disable it for good:
- Click the “Sticky keys” row itself, not its switch, to open its settings.
- Turn off “Keyboard shortcut for Sticky keys”.
- Go back, open “Filter keys” the same way and turn off “Keyboard shortcut for Filter keys”.
Further down the “Keyboard” page, under “Notification preferences”, there are options like “Notify me when I turn on Sticky, Filter, or Toggle keys from the keyboard”. They only control the message and the sound — the shortcut stays on.
In Windows 10
Go to Start → Settings → Ease of Access → Keyboard. Under “Sticky Keys”, turn off “Use Sticky Keys” and “Allow the shortcut key to start Sticky Keys”. Under “Filter Keys”, do the same with “Use Filter Keys” and “Allow the shortcut key to start Filter Keys”. According to Microsoft, the shortcuts themselves are the same as in Windows 11.
If it keeps turning itself on
Most likely, something keeps pressing Shift: a game where you tap Shift a lot, a child, or a cat walking across the keyboard. Filter Keys comes on when something holds the right Shift down — a book, say, or a key that sticks. Or maybe someone just clicked “Yes” in that window.
If Sticky Keys is already on, you can turn it off the same way it came on, by pressing Shift five times. There’s a quicker way, too. In its settings, turn on “Turn off Sticky keys when two keys are pressed at the same time”. Then pressing two keys together turns it off.
Alt+Shift, which switches the keyboard language, is a separate shortcut. I’ve written about it in my post on how to change the keyboard language in Windows 11.
Who these features are for
Sticky Keys is for people who have trouble pressing two keys at the same time — someone who types with one hand, for example. Filter Keys helps people whose hands shake or whose fingers tend to brush neighboring keys. Toggle Keys plays a sound so you know Caps Lock just went on or off, even if you can’t see its light. And the shortcuts? They let you turn this help on straight from the keyboard, without opening Settings first.
Turning them off on your own PC is perfectly fine. On someone else’s, like a parent’s or a colleague’s, ask first — they may rely on them.
The bottom line
Turn off both the switch and the shortcut for every feature you don’t need. If you ever need one back, it’s right where you left it.