How to Type Special Characters and Symbols on Mac: The Complete Guide

Mac keyboards don’t have dedicated keys for degree symbols, em dashes, copyright signs, or most other special characters. But macOS has several ways to type them, and some are much faster than others.

This guide covers every method, from the built-in shortcuts to setting up your own.

Method 1: Keyboard shortcuts

macOS assigns Option-key combinations to dozens of special characters. Here are the ones people actually search for:

Punctuation and dashes

Currency

Math and science

Legal and business

Accented characters

For accented letters, macOS uses a dead key system. Press the accent shortcut first, then the letter:

This works with any vowel (or n for tilde). So Option + E then A gives you á, Option + U then O gives you ö, and so on.

Method 2: The Character Viewer

If you don’t remember a shortcut (and honestly, who memorizes Option+Shift+8 for degree?), macOS has a built-in character picker.

Open it with: Control + Command + Space

This opens a searchable panel. Type “degree” to find °, “copyright” to find ©, or browse by category. Click any character to insert it at your cursor.

You can also open the full Character Viewer from the menu bar. Go to System Settings > Keyboard and enable “Show Input menu in menu bar.” Then click the Input menu (the flag or character icon) and select “Show Emoji & Symbols.”

The Character Viewer works well for one-off characters, but opening it, searching, and clicking takes 5 to 10 seconds each time. If you use certain symbols regularly, there are faster options.

Method 3: Press and hold

For accented characters specifically, you can press and hold a letter key. Hold down “e” and a popup appears showing é, è, ê, ë, and other variants. Press the corresponding number or click to select.

This is the slowest method but the most discoverable. Good for occasional use, not for frequent typing.

Method 4: Text replacement (built into macOS)

macOS can automatically replace text you type with any character or phrase.

1. Open System Settings > Keyboard > Text Replacements
2. Click + to add a new entry
3. Set a trigger (like ;deg) and the replacement (°)

Now ;deg becomes ° everywhere on your Mac. You can set up replacements for every symbol you use regularly.

Limits of the built-in feature: It sometimes doesn’t work in certain apps. It can’t handle rich text or images. There’s no way to organize your shortcuts into groups. And syncing through iCloud can be unreliable.

Method 5: Text expansion apps

A text expander takes the concept of text replacement and makes it reliable and powerful. Instead of macOS’s basic feature, you get an app designed specifically for this purpose.

In TypeSnap, for example, you can create a whole set of symbol shortcuts:

• ;deg for °
• ;em for the em dash
• ;cents for ¢
• ;copy for ©
• ;tm for ™
• ;euro for €
• ;rarr for → (right arrow)
• ;larr for ← (left arrow)

These work instantly, in every app, every time. You choose the triggers, so they’re easy to remember. And you can go beyond single characters: set up snippets for entire phrases, formatted text, dates, or templates.

If you type special characters more than a few times a week, a dedicated text expander pays for itself in saved time and saved trips to Google.

Which method should you use?

Occasionally need a symbol: Use the Character Viewer (Control + Command + Space). Search, click, done.

Need accented characters for another language: Learn the dead key shortcuts (Option+E then vowel, etc.) or use press-and-hold. These are worth memorizing because the pattern is consistent.

Regularly use specific symbols: Set up text replacements, either through macOS Settings or a text expansion app. The two minutes of setup saves you from ever looking up the shortcut again.

Use many different symbols frequently: A text expander is the practical choice. Create a full set of symbol shortcuts once, then forget about keyboard shortcut charts entirely.