How to Type Special Characters on Mac: The Complete Guide

MacOS has more built-in methods for typing special characters than most users ever discover. Whether you need an em dash for prose, a copyright symbol for a document, or an accented letter for a French phrase, macOS puts every Unicode character within reach — if you know where to look.

This guide covers every method from the quick Option-key shortcuts to the deep Unicode Hex Input keyboard, so you can choose the right tool for each situation.

Method 1: Option Key Shortcuts

The fastest way to type common special characters on a Mac is with Option (⌥) key combinations. These are built into every macOS keyboard layout and require no setup.

Single Option Key Combos

Hold Option and press a letter or symbol key:

Memorizing the Most Useful Ones

The three dash variants are worth learning immediately: - Hyphen (-): standard key - En dash (–): Option+Minus — use between number ranges (2020–2025) - Em dash (—): Option+Shift+Minus — use as a sentence break — like this

The curly quote shortcuts are also essential for clean typography in any writing application.

Method 2: Dead Keys for Accented Characters

Dead keys let you type accented characters with a two-keystroke sequence. Press the dead key first (nothing appears), then press the base letter. macOS uses the US keyboard layout's dead keys by default.

How Dead Keys Work on macOS

On a standard Mac keyboard, Option+e is a dead key for the acute accent (´). When you press it, nothing appears yet. Then:

• Option+e, then e → é
• Option+e, then a → á
• Option+e, then i → í
• Option+e, then o → ó
• Option+e, then u → ú

Other dead key combinations:

For example, to type ñ (used in Spanish), press Option+n, then n.

Press and Hold for Accent Menu

In most apps, pressing and holding a letter key shows a popup menu of accented variants. Hold e and you'll see: è é ê ë ē ė ę. Press the number shown below the character, or click it.

This method is slower than dead keys but requires no memorization. It works in Safari, Notes, Pages, and most Cocoa text fields.

Method 3: Character Viewer

The Character Viewer gives you access to every Unicode character organized by category. It is particularly useful when you need a character you don't know the keyboard shortcut for.

Opening Character Viewer

• Keyboard shortcut: Control+Command+Space
• Menu: In any app, go to Edit > Emoji & Symbols
• Menu bar: Click the Input Source menu in the menu bar and select "Show Emoji & Symbols" (if you have it enabled)

Navigating Character Viewer

The Character Viewer opens as a small floating panel. Click the grid icon in the top-right corner to expand it to the full browser.

The left sidebar shows categories: - Frequently Used — your recent characters - Emoji — all emoji organized by category - Letterlike Symbols — ™, ©, ℃, ℉, and others - Punctuation — dashes, quotes, brackets - Math Symbols — ∑, ∫, ∂, ∇, and more - Latin — accented Latin characters - Currency Symbols — all world currencies

Searching Character Viewer

Type in the search bar to find characters by name. Try: - "degree" → finds °, ℃, ℉ - "arrow" → finds →, ←, ↑, ↓, ⇒, ⟶ - "heart" → finds ♥, ❤, 🖤, 💛 - "fraction" → finds ½, ⅓, ¾

Double-click any character to insert it at the cursor position. You can also drag it into a text field.

Adding to Favorites

Right-click any character in the Character Viewer and choose "Add to Favorites." Your favorites appear at the top of the Frequently Used category, making recurring special characters instantly accessible.

Method 4: Unicode Hex Input

For developers and power users, the Unicode Hex Input keyboard lets you type any Unicode character by its code point. Hold Option and type the four hex digits of the code point.

Enabling Unicode Hex Input

1. Open System Settings (macOS Ventura+) or System Preferences (older)
2. Go to Keyboard
3. Click Text Input > Edit (or "Input Sources")
4. Click the + button
5. Search for "Unicode Hex Input"
6. Select it and click Add

Now switch to it via the Input menu in the menu bar or with Command+Space (if you have the keyboard shortcut configured).

Using Unicode Hex Input

With the Unicode Hex Input keyboard active: 1. Hold Option 2. Type the four-character hex code of the Unicode code point 3. Release Option — the character appears

Examples: - Option + 2014 → — (em dash, U+2014) - Option + 00B0 → ° (degree sign, U+00B0) - Option + 03C0 → π (pi, U+03C0) - Option + 2603 → ☃ (snowman, U+2603) - Option + 1F600 → (doesn't work — emoji are outside BMP)

Find the code point for any character with our Unicode Lookup tool.

Limitations

Unicode Hex Input only works for characters in the Basic Multilingual Plane (U+0000 to U+FFFF). Characters above U+FFFF, including most emoji, require surrogate pairs — which this method doesn't handle. For those, use the Character Viewer or emoji picker instead.

Method 5: Emoji Picker

The emoji picker (officially "Emoji & Symbols") gives quick access to the full emoji set and is much faster than Character Viewer for finding emoji.

Opening the Emoji Picker

• Keyboard shortcut: Control+Command+Space (same as Character Viewer — they are the same panel, with different default views)
• Touch Bar: Tap the emoji icon (on supported MacBook Pros)
• Fn key (macOS Monterey+): Press Fn (or Globe key) once to open emoji picker

Browsing and Searching

The emoji picker shows recent emoji at the top, then categories (Smileys & People, Animals, Food, etc.). Type in the search bar to find by description: "pizza," "thumbs," "check."

Hover over any emoji to see its full name and variants. Click and hold to see skin tone variants for people emoji.

Method 6: Text Replacement

For characters you type repeatedly, macOS Text Replacement turns a short abbreviation into the full character automatically.

Setting Up Text Replacement

1. Open System Settings > Keyboard
2. Click Text Replacements
3. Click +
4. Enter a Replace shortcut (e.g., ->>), and the With value (→)

Now whenever you type ==> in any text field, macOS replaces it with ⇒. This works system-wide in all apps that support standard text input.

Useful replacements to configure: - -- → — (em dash) - (c) → © (copyright) - (r) → ® (registered) - (tm) → ™ (trademark) - degF → °F

Syncing via iCloud

Text replacements sync across all your Apple devices via iCloud, so the same shortcuts work on your iPhone and iPad.

Method 7: Key Caps and the Keyboard Viewer

The Keyboard Viewer shows you a visual representation of your keyboard and highlights what each key produces — including with Option and Shift held down.

Enabling Keyboard Viewer

1. System Settings > Keyboard
2. Enable "Show Input menu in menu bar"
3. Click the Input menu in the menu bar > Show Keyboard Viewer

A virtual keyboard appears on screen. Hold Option to see all the special characters accessible with Option key combos. Hold Shift to see uppercase variants. Hold Option+Shift for the third layer.

This is the best way to discover Option key shortcuts for your specific keyboard layout.

Choosing the Right Method

Troubleshooting

Option key combinations not working: Check that you're using the correct keyboard layout (System Settings > Keyboard > Input Sources). Some third-party keyboards remap Option key behavior.

Dead keys producing wrong characters: The dead key combinations listed above apply to the US keyboard layout. Other layouts (UK, European) have different dead key mappings.

Character Viewer won't open: Try quitting and reopening the app. In some non-Cocoa apps (like some Electron apps), Character Viewer may not insert characters properly — copy the character from Character Viewer and paste instead.

Press-and-hold menu not appearing: This can be disabled. Open Terminal and run: defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true, then restart the app.

Next in Series: Windows users get a completely different set of tools — Alt codes, the Character Map, and the Win+. emoji panel. See How to Type Special Characters on Windows for the full guide.