On a US keyboard layout the at sign is Shift + 2. On a UK or Irish layout it is Shift + ' — the apostrophe key to the left of Enter — because the UK layout puts the double quote on Shift + 2 instead. Or copy one here:
@DetailsIf neither shortcut produces @, the layout your computer is using does not match the letters printed on your keys. That is the cause almost every time, and it takes seconds to fix.
Where the @ key is on each layout
| Layout | Type @ with | What Shift + 2 gives |
|---|---|---|
| US (Windows and Mac) | Shift + 2 | @ |
| UK / Irish (Windows) | Shift + ' | " (double quote) |
| UK (Mac) | Shift + 2 | @ |
That third row surprises people. Apple’s British layout keeps @ on the 2 key, so a British Mac behaves like a US Mac for this character. The British Windows layout is the one that swaps @ and ", which explains a lot of mistyped email addresses in offices that mix Macs and PCs.
Other national layouts — German, French, Spanish, Nordic — place @ somewhere else again, often on a third level reached with the AltGr key. Rather than guess at a layout we cannot see, display the layout your machine is actually using, as described below.
Why the @ key moves at all
The keys on a keyboard send scan codes, not characters. The operating system turns a scan code into a character using the keyboard layout you selected. The legends printed on the keycaps are just paint: they describe the layout the manufacturer expected you to choose. Set a UK keyboard to the US layout and Shift + 2 produces @ even though the keycap says ". Set a US keyboard to the UK layout and the same keystroke produces a double quote.
So @ is not something you fix with a character code. It is a plain ASCII character, U+0040 COMMERCIAL AT, present in every layout ever shipped — it is simply not always in the same place. See Unicode vs. ASCII for why the oldest characters like @ are the best supported ones on any device.
Windows: check and fix your layout
See the layout you are actually using
Open the On-Screen Keyboard: press Windows + R, type osk and press Enter, or search the Start menu for "On-Screen Keyboard". On current Windows versions Windows + Ctrl + O opens it too. The on-screen keys show the live layout, so click Shift on it and look at where @ appears. Whatever key it sits on is the key to press on your physical keyboard, regardless of what that keycap says.
Switch between installed layouts
If more than one keyboard layout is installed, press Windows + Space to cycle through them. A small indicator appears showing the language and layout name, such as ENG UK or ENG US. Release the keys on the one you want. The same indicator lives in the taskbar next to the clock and can be clicked instead.
Add or remove a layout
Open Settings and go to Time & language, then Language & region. Find your language, open its options, and add or remove keyboards there. The wording shifts between Windows 10 and 11, but the path is always language settings rather than the Keyboard section, which is a common wrong turn. Remove layouts you never use so Windows + Space cannot drop you into one by accident.
Mac: check and fix your input source
On macOS, layouts are called input sources. Open System Settings, go to Keyboard, and look at Text Input or Input Sources. Turn on the option to show the Input menu in the menu bar; the wording and nesting differ between macOS versions, but the toggle is in that section. The menu bar then shows a flag or abbreviation for the current source and lets you switch with one click.
From that same Input menu, choose Show Keyboard Viewer. It is the Mac equivalent of the On-Screen Keyboard and updates live as you hold modifier keys, so hold Shift and watch @ light up on whichever key really carries it. Our guide to typing special characters on a Mac covers the rest of the Mac symbol toolkit.
Chromebook, iPhone and Android
ChromeOS also separates the physical keyboard from the input method. Open Settings, find the languages and inputs section, and check which input method is active; Chromebooks sold in different regions ship with different defaults. Once the right one is selected, @ follows the usual rules: Shift + 2 on a US input method, Shift + ' on a UK one.
Touch keyboards avoid the problem entirely, because they draw the characters they will actually produce. On both iPhone and Android, tap the 123 key to reach the numbers and symbols layer, where @ sits with the other punctuation. In fields that expect an email or web address, most keyboards promote @ and the period to the main letter layer, which saves a tap. Pressing and holding nearby keys reveals related characters, the trick described in typing symbols on iPhone and Android.
@ has no Alt code, and does not need one
People search for an Alt code for @ and find nothing useful, because Windows Alt codes exist to reach characters that are not on the keyboard. The at sign is on every keyboard, so there is no standard Alt code for it worth memorizing. If your Shift key or the @ key itself is physically broken, these fallbacks all work:
- Emoji & symbol panel: press Windows + . (or Windows + ;), open the Symbols tab and pick @ from the general punctuation.
- Character Map: search the Start menu for Character Map, or run
charmap, then find @, copy it, and paste. - Microsoft Word: type
0040and press Alt + X, which converts the code point into the character. - Excel:
=UNICHAR(64)returns @. - Google Docs: Insert > Special characters, then search for "commercial at".
- The web: copy it from the commercial at reference page or the symbol search tool.
The Alt code finder is the place to look when you do need a genuine Alt code — for characters like £, € or ° that really are missing from your layout. How Alt codes work explains the numeric keypad requirement that trips up laptop users.
@ in HTML, URLs and code
In HTML you can type @ directly in body text; it has no special meaning in HTML markup and needs no escaping. If you want a character reference anyway, @, @ and @ all produce @. Numeric references always work, while named ones exist only for a fixed list of characters.
Elsewhere @ is heavily overloaded: it separates the local part from the domain in an email address, marks a handle on social platforms, introduces decorators in Python, starts at-rules such as @media in CSS, and separates user from host in an SSH command. In a URL it must be percent-encoded as %40 when it appears inside a query value.
When @ still will not type
- You get " instead of @. Classic US/UK layout mismatch. Press Windows + Space, or use the Mac Input menu, and try again.
- Nothing appears at all. Some layouts treat certain keys as dead keys that wait for a second keystroke. Press the space bar after the key to release the pending character, then check the on-screen keyboard.
- It works in one app only. Remote desktop sessions, virtual machines and browser-based terminals apply their own keyboard layout. Set the layout inside the remote session, not just on the local machine.
- An external keyboard behaves differently from the built-in one. Windows applies the layout to all attached keyboards at once. Keep both layouts installed and toggle with Windows + Space when you switch keyboards.
Related symbols
The characters that most often move with @ when a layout changes are the number sign #, the pound sign £ and the dollar sign $. The euro sign € is usually reached through AltGr on European layouts, and the section sign § appears on many continental keyboards but on no US one. Browse the whole punctuation category for the rest.
Frequently asked questions
Why is @ on a different key on my UK keyboard?
The British Windows layout puts the double quote on Shift + 2 and moves @ to Shift + ', next to Enter. It also gives # its own key and puts £ on Shift + 3. British Macs differ: there, @ stays on Shift + 2.
Is there an Alt code for the at symbol?
There is no Alt code you need. @ is a standard keyboard character in every layout, so the fix is to find its key rather than to enter a numeric code. If the key is broken, use the Windows emoji and symbol panel with Windows + ., or copy the character from a reference page.
What is the Unicode code point for @?
The at sign is U+0040 COMMERCIAL AT, one of the original ASCII characters. In HTML it can be written as @, @ or @.
How do I find out which keyboard layout I am really using?
On Windows, open the On-Screen Keyboard by running osk and click its Shift key to see the shifted characters. On a Mac, choose Show Keyboard Viewer from the Input menu in the menu bar and hold Shift. Both show the live layout, which is the only thing that matters — the printing on your keycaps can be wrong.
Does the at sign need escaping in HTML?
No. In HTML body text @ has no markup meaning and can be typed as-is. In a URL it should be percent-encoded as %40 inside a query string value, because a bare @ has a reserved role in the authority part of a URL.