Accent Marks

Type accented characters on Mac

On Mac, hold a letter key to open its accent menu in an application that supports it. Character Viewer offers another way to insert accented letters and symbols.

Start in an editable text field. The app must support the accent menu, and the letter must have available accented variants.

  1. Press and hold a letter key, such as A, until the menu appears.
  2. Click the accented character you want. Apple illustrates á among the choices for A.
  3. To select with the keyboard instead, press the number beneath a choice, or use the arrow keys to highlight it and press Space.

The menu is unavailable in some apps. It does not appear when the held key has no additional characters.

Use Character Viewer

  1. Place the insertion point in your text, then choose Edit > Emoji & Symbols.
  2. Browse the categories or search for a character by name or code.
  3. Click a character to insert it. In the expanded viewer, double-click the character.

These are menu and viewer workflows. Their documented scope does not establish a layout-specific Option-key sequence.

Compare accented A character identities and Unicode values

Sources