How to Type Special Characters on a Mac

On a Mac, most special characters are one Option shortcut away: Option + Shift + 8 types °, Option + G types © and Option + Shift + 2 types €. For accented letters, press and hold the letter key, and for everything else open the Character Viewer with Control + Command + Space.

macOS has no Alt codes. Instead it gives you four tools that cover almost every character: Option-key shortcuts, dead keys for accents, press-and-hold accent menus, and the Character Viewer. Here is when to use each one.

1. Option-key shortcuts

Holding Option (labeled ⌥ or Alt on some keyboards), or Option + Shift, turns every key into a second and third character. These layers are built into the keyboard layout, so the shortcuts work in any app: Pages, Word, Mail, Safari, Slack and text fields on websites.

The shortcuts below apply to the standard U.S. and ABC keyboard layouts. British, Canadian, Australian and other layouts move some of them (for example, the British layout has its own place for £), so if a shortcut produces something unexpected, check your layout with the Keyboard Viewer described later.

Some are easy to remember because the key hints at the symbol: Option + R for ®, Option + Equals (=) for ≠, and Option + Comma (,) and Option + Period (.) for ≤ and ≥ (the keys that also carry < and >). The dashes sit on the hyphen key: Option + Hyphen (-) for the en dash and Option + Shift + Hyphen (-) for the em dash. Search any other character in the shortcut finder, which lists the verified Mac shortcut where one exists.

2. Dead keys for accented letters

Some Option combinations do not type a character right away. They are dead keys: they show a highlighted accent and wait for the next letter. Press the Option combination, release both keys, then type the letter.

For a capital letter, hold Shift when you type the letter in the second step: Option + E, then Shift + E gives É. If you want the accent mark on its own, press the dead key and then the Space bar. If the next letter cannot take that accent, macOS types the accent and the letter separately.

3. Press and hold a letter

The quickest way to get an accented letter on a Mac is the same as on an iPhone: press and hold a letter key. A small menu appears above the cursor with every variant of that letter. Click one, or press the number shown under it. Holding e, for instance, offers è, é, ê, ë and several more, and holding n offers ñ.

If holding a key repeats the letter instead (eeeee), press-and-hold has been turned off, usually for gaming or by an older setting. Advanced users can re-enable it in Terminal with defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true, then log out and back in. If you type in a single language often, the free online accent keyboard is another option for longer passages.

4. The Character Viewer

For anything without a shortcut (arrows, check marks, stars, Greek letters, rare math symbols) use the Character Viewer, macOS’s built-in character map.

1. Click where you want the character.
2. Press Control + Command + Space, or choose Edit > Emoji & Symbols from the menu bar. Depending on your keyboard settings, pressing the Globe or fn key may open it too.
3. The compact window shows emoji first. Click the expand icon in its top-right corner to switch to the full Character Viewer with categories on the left.
4. Type a name in the search field, such as “arrow,” “check” or “degree,” or browse a category.
5. Double-click a character to insert it. Right-click it to add it to Favorites or copy its details.

If the categories you need (Arrows, Math Symbols, Pictographs, Letterlike Symbols and so on) are missing, open the action menu in the expanded viewer and choose Customize List to switch them on. The detail pane shows each character’s Unicode name and code point, which you can also look up with our Unicode lookup tool.

Find any Option shortcut with the Keyboard Viewer

You do not need to memorize the table above. Turn on Show Input menu in menu bar in your keyboard input settings, then choose Show Keyboard Viewer from that menu. An on-screen keyboard appears. Hold Option, or Option + Shift, and every key changes to show what it will type. Dead keys are highlighted, so you can see all five accent keys at a glance. This also reveals the correct shortcuts for non-U.S. layouts.

Text replacements for characters you type often

macOS can swap a short code for any character as you type. Open System Settings > Keyboard, click Text Replacements, and add an entry such as :check → ✓ or :deg → °. On older versions of macOS this lives under System Preferences > Keyboard > Text. Replacements sync through iCloud to your iPhone and iPad, and they work in most apps that use Apple’s text system.

Special characters in HTML

If you are writing HTML on a Mac, you can type the character directly (modern pages are UTF-8) or use a reference: °, ° or ° all display °. The HTML entity table lists every named entity.

Why a Mac shortcut doesn’t work

• Different keyboard layout. Option shortcuts depend on the input source. Check the flag or name in the menu bar, or use the Keyboard Viewer.
• An app has claimed the shortcut. Some apps assign their own commands to Option combinations. Try the same shortcut in TextEdit to confirm.
• You held the dead key too long or typed too fast. Press the Option combination, release it, then type the letter.
• The character shows as a box. The font lacks that glyph. Switch fonts; system fonts such as SF Pro and Helvetica Neue cover common symbols.
• Windows Alt codes. Codes like Alt + 0176 are a Windows feature and do nothing on macOS, even with a Windows keyboard attached.

Related symbols

• Degree Symbol (°), Plus-Minus Sign (±) and other math symbols
• Copyright Symbol (©) and Trademark Symbol (™)
• Command Key Symbol (⌘), Option Key Symbol (⌥), Shift Key Symbol (⇧) and Control Key Symbol (⌃), the symbols printed on Mac keys
• All accented letters

Frequently asked questions

What is the Mac equivalent of Alt codes?

Option-key shortcuts. They are shorter than Alt codes but cover fewer characters. For everything else, use the Character Viewer (Control + Command + Space).

How do I type the degree symbol on a Mac?

Press Option + Shift + 8 on a U.S. layout. The similar-looking Masculine Ordinal Indicator (º) is Option + 0, which is a different character.

How do I type an accent on a Mac keyboard?

Press and hold the letter and choose the accent, or use a dead key such as Option + E, then E for é.

Why does holding a key repeat it instead of showing accents?

Press-and-hold is disabled. Re-enable it with the Terminal command shown above, or use dead keys instead.