Master special characters
Easily add accents, emojis, and other symbols for a finished look
REQUIRES
macOS 10.12 or later
YOU WILL LEARN
To add special characters and emoji
IT WILL TAKE
10 minutes
GENIUS TIP
In macOS 15.1 or later, you can use Apple Intelligence to automatically add diacritics. Select the text, Ctrl-click and choose Writing Tools > Proofread.
JARGON BUSTER
A diacritic is a sign such as an accent or symbol that appears above/below a letter to indicate a different pronunciation, such as in “café”.
YOUR MAC’S KEYBOARD is a clever thing, but sometimes it’s not apparent how to type certain accented letters, special characters, or emoji. If you invest some time to learn how to quickly access them, you will save a lot of head–scratching later. As with most things on a Mac, there are multiple ways of accessing and adding these characters. Once you’ve learnt them, they’ll become second nature. Here, we’ll show you the best ways to go about it, starting with how to access mini menus for accented characters while you are typing.