How to Type the Copyright Symbol on Mac (©)

The copyright symbol is hiding in your Mac keyboard, one shortcut away. You just need to know which keys to press.

Here’s every way to type it.

The keyboard shortcut

Press Option + G on your Mac to type ©.

That’s it. Hold Option, press G, and the copyright symbol appears. Works in every app — Pages, Word, Google Docs, your email client, everywhere.

Why Option + G? There’s no obvious logic to it, but it helps to know that Apple tucked all three intellectual property symbols into Option-key combos:

Option + R for Registered makes sense. Option + 2 for ™ is harder to justify. And Option + G for copyright? Your guess is as good as mine. But once you learn all three together, they stick a little better as a group.

The related symbols in context

Since you’re here for the copyright symbol, you might also need the other two. Here’s when to use each:

© Copyright — protects original works (writing, code, music, photos). You own a copyright the moment you create something. You’ll see it in website footers, book pages, and code file headers. Example: © 2026 Aaron Hampton.

® Registered trademark — for trademarks that have been officially registered with a trademark office. You can’t legally use ® unless the registration is granted. Example: Apple® is a registered trademark.

™ Trademark — for unregistered trademarks. Anyone can use ™ to claim a name or logo as their trademark, even without registration. Example: MyStartup™.

Other methods

Character Viewer

If you forget Option + G, you can always use the Character Viewer:

1. Click where you want the symbol
2. Go to Edit → Emoji & Symbols (or press Control + Command + Space)
3. Search for “copyright”
4. Double-click © to insert it

This works, but it’s three or four steps for a single character.

HTML entities (for web writers)

If you’re writing HTML, you don’t need to type the actual © character. Use an HTML entity instead:

• © — the named entity
• © — the numeric entity

Both render as © in the browser. The named entity is easier to read in source code.

Unicode

The copyright symbol is Unicode character U+00A9. Most apps that accept Unicode input will let you enter it directly, though the method varies by app. In practice, Option + G is faster.

The text expansion approach

Option + G works. But here’s something more useful: instead of just the symbol, create a trigger for your full copyright line.

In TypeSnap, you could set up two triggers:

• ;copy expands to ©
• ;copyright expands to © 2026 Aaron Hampton. All rights reserved.

The first one gives you the bare symbol whenever you need it. The second one gives you a complete copyright notice — ready to paste into a website footer, a document header, an email signature, or a code comment.

Here’s the practical advantage: when January rolls around, you update the year in your TypeSnap snippet once, and every copyright notice you type for the rest of the year is correct. No more finding and replacing “2025” with “2026” across a dozen documents.

You could even set up ;copyr for a full copyright block with a line break:

© 2026 Aaron Hampton
All rights reserved.

One trigger, complete copyright notice, always up to date.

Where you’d use the copyright symbol

If you’re wondering whether you actually need this shortcut, here are the common places:

• Website footers — almost every site has a copyright line at the bottom
• Documents and reports — cover pages, headers, and title pages
• Photos and images — watermarks and metadata
• Email signatures — a copyright line under your name and title
• Blog posts and articles — especially if you republish or syndicate content
• Code file headers — open-source and proprietary code often includes a copyright notice

If you write any of these regularly, you’ll reach for the copyright symbol more often than you’d expect.

Stop looking it up

Option + G for the copyright symbol. Option + R for registered. Option + 2 for trademark.

Or skip the shortcuts entirely — set up text expansion triggers in TypeSnap and get the symbols (or full copyright lines) from simple abbreviations that you’ll actually remember. One-time purchase, no subscription, works in every app on your Mac.