Why No PBT Set Covers Razer's M1-M5 Macro Keys

No 104-key PBT set — YMDK’s included — ships with keycaps for Razer’s M1-M5 macro column, and neither does Razer’s own official PBT Keycap Upgrade Set. Razer’s support forum confirms it directly: staff responding to buyers of that exact set state plainly that “M1-M5 keycaps are not included with the PBT Keycap set.” A 104/108-key kit is cut to the ANSI or ISO standard layout, and a five-key macro column bolted to the left edge of a keyboard isn’t part of that standard, so no aftermarket vendor — YMDK, Razer, or anyone else selling a 104-count set — molds keys for it. The fix isn’t a different keycap set; it’s using what a 104-key kit already includes for a purpose it wasn’t labeled for.

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Which Razer keyboards actually have this macro column

Before hunting for M1-M5 caps, confirm the keyboard actually has five dedicated physical macro keys. Razer’s device layout diagram for the BlackWidow Chroma V2 labels a column of five separate keycaps running down the far left edge of the board, next to the main key cluster — that’s the classic implementation, shared with the original BlackWidow Chroma and BlackWidow Ultimate. Later boards handle “macros” differently: the BlackWidow V3 Mini and V3 Pro print M1-M4 as a secondary, Fn-shifted legend on the existing F-row keys rather than adding extra keycaps, and the BlackWidow Elite has no dedicated macro keys at all — any key can be turned into a macro through Synapse, but there’s no fifth column to keycap. If your board falls into either of those two camps, a standard 104-key set already covers every physical key you have; the M1-M5 gap only exists on boards with the true five-key column.

The switches under M1-M5 aren’t the obstacle

On the boards that do have the column, each macro key sits on the same Razer Mechanical Switch used everywhere else on the board — Green, Orange, or Yellow — and those switches use a cross-shaped stem that’s dimensionally compatible with Cherry MX-style keycaps, confirmed on Razer’s own custom-keycap support thread for the BlackWidow line. That means any standard 1u keycap physically clips onto an M1-M5 switch without modification. The problem was never fit; it’s that nobody prints “M1” through “M5” on a keycap meant for a standard layout, so whatever you put there will be blank of that label.

One fit detail that does trip people up: older BlackWidow Chroma and Ultimate boards use a non-standard bottom row (1.5u Ctrl/Alt keys, 1u Windows/Fn/Menu keys, a 6u spacebar), while the newer BlackWidow Elite and Chroma V2 line moved to the standard bottom row that aftermarket 104 kits are built for (1.25u modifiers, 6.25u spacebar). Check which bottom row your board has before buying — a 104-key set sized for the modern standard won’t cover the modifier row on an older board, macro keys aside.

Filling the M1-M5 slots from a 104-key kit’s own spares

A 104-count ANSI kit never uses every keycap molded for it — sets built around this layout typically throw in a handful of extra 1u and 1.25u blanks and novelty accent keys that don’t map to any position on a standard board, because the mold serves 61-, 87-, and 104-key layouts from the same run. Those unused spares are the practical source for M1-M5: pick five that match the row height of whichever main-cluster row each macro key sits beside, since Razer’s OEM profile (and the Cherry profile most YMDK kits use) steps down in height from R4 at the function row to R1 at the bottom letter row. Match height first, color second — legend won’t match regardless.

Do standard PBT keycaps glow through the legend?

This is where “shine-through” matters, and the two things sold under the YMDK 104-key name behave differently:

If your board has per-key RGB and you want the legends themselves to light up, the double-shot shine-through line is the one to buy — a laser-etched or dye-sub PBT set will never do that, no matter how bright the switch LED is. But the shine-through line has the same gap as every other 104-key set: there’s no legended “M1” cap in it either. The realistic outcome is a blank shine-through cap sitting in the M1-M5 slot, glowing as a solid block of light with no printed character, rather than a lit “M1” — because nobody currently molds that specific legend outside Razer’s original, now-discontinued factory replacement caps.

What to actually buy

Skip Razer’s own PBT Keycap Upgrade Set if the M1-M5 gap is the reason you’re shopping — it’s confirmed by Razer’s own support staff to exclude those five keys, so it costs more than a third-party set while solving exactly nothing that a YMDK kit doesn’t already leave unsolved. Between the two YMDK variants, buy the double-shot shine-through set if the board’s per-key lighting is part of why you’re upgrading; the opaque dye-sub or laser-etched Carbon-style set is worth considering instead only if you don’t care whether the alpha legends light up, since it’s typically the thicker, more durable option of the two and costs less for equivalent coverage of the main 104 keys. Either way, pair it with a small blank-keycap spares pack in a matching profile and colorway — that’s the only way to physically fill all five macro positions with something that matches the rest of the board, accepting that none of them will say “M1” through “M5” once you’re done.

If matching legends on those five keys matters more than anything else here, the honest answer is that the only keycaps ever printed with the correct labels were the ones Razer shipped on the keyboard originally — and the sensible move for most owners is leaving those five stock caps in place and swapping the other 99 keys around them, a mismatch that’s rarely visible unless someone is looking for it.