What Are Clicky Switches? A Beginner’s Guide to How They Work

For the full breakdown, see our best Clicky Switches guide.

You feel a small bump and hear a sharp click at the same instant — not the soft thud of bottoming out, but a designed sound built into the switch. Clicky switches are the loud branch of the mechanical family: they share the bump of a tactile switch, then add an intentional click on top. That click isn’t a side effect — it’s the feature.

How Does A Clicky Switch Make Its Sound?

A tiny internal piece moves and slaps down when you push past the bump, and that impact is the click. Cherry describes the actuation point of a clicky switch as being signaled by both audible click and tactile feedback.

A small sliding element rides along a track, builds tension, then snaps free at the actuation point — the moment the keyboard registers the keystroke. Bump and click land together. Cherry’s MX Blue is the reference point, listed as “tactile and acoustic (with click),” with the click produced by internal moving parts.

Not every loud keyboard is clicky. A heavy-handed typist on quiet linear switches can make plenty of noise bottoming out keys — racket that comes from bottoming out, not the switch. A clicky switch’s sound is separate, designed, and repeatable: it fires at the bump every time, no matter how hard you press.

Clicky Vs. Tactile Vs. Linear: What Is The Real Difference?

The three types differ in two ways — whether there’s a bump, and whether there’s a click. Linear has neither. Tactile has the bump but stays quiet. Clicky has both. Cherry’s color shorthand: MX Red is linear, MX Brown is tactile, MX Blue is clicky. That convention spread industry-wide, making “blue switches” shorthand for clicky almost everywhere.

For anyone weighing trade-offs before buying, a tested side-by-side look at the best clicky switches can shortcut the guesswork. Want the bump without noise? Tactile. Want neither? Linear. Clicky is for when you actively want feedback to be heard.

What Specs Actually Matter On A Clicky Switch?

Three numbers tell you how a clicky switch will feel: actuation force, pre-travel, and total travel. Cherry’s MX2A Blue lists 60 cN actuation force, 2.2 mm pre-travel, and 4.0 mm total travel, rated for more than 50 million keystrokes.

Actuation force is how hard you push before the key registers; pre-travel is how far down before that happens; total travel is how far the key moves until it stops.

One wrinkle: older Cherry MX1A Blue references list 50 cN and product code MX1A-E1xx, while the newer MX2A page lists 60 cN. If comparing specs across listings, check which version you’re looking at — the numbers moved between generations.

The click doesn’t change those figures — it’s an added layer of feedback, not a separate mechanism, and a clicky switch still fires at its actuation point like any other switch. Cherry’s overview of its MX lineup shows how the company frames these categories across its range.

Where Do Clicky Switches Make Sense — And Where Don’t They?

Clicky switches suit typing where you’re not sharing sound. They’re the wrong pick for open offices, shared desks, and any room where a call is happening. The click is the whole appeal and the whole problem. Typists who like knowing exactly when a key fires tend to love them, because bump and click confirm the keystroke before your finger reaches bottom — which is why they have a devoted following among writers and programmers who work alone.

Mechanical switch categories apply to keyboard switches specifically — a hardware question, not software or a regional setting. Clicky, tactile, and linear describe how a physical switch behaves; swapping between them means changing the switches or the keyboard. If your desk sits near other people, go tactile: you keep the bump, you lose the complaints.