Type accents on a Mac: dead keys and the press-and-hold menu

27 October 2026 · 6 min read

The easiest way to type an accent on a Mac is to hold the letter down. After a moment a menu of accented versions appears above it; press the number under the one you want, or click it. Hold e and press 2, and you get é. The faster way, once you know it, is a dead key: press Option-E (⌥E), let go, then press e, and macOS types é. Option-U gives ü, Option-N gives ñ, Option-I gives ê and Option-` gives è.

Both work in almost every app, on the U.S. and ABC layouts that most English speakers use. Which one suits you depends on how often you type accents, and in which languages.

The press-and-hold menu

Hold down a letter that has accented forms, such as a, e, i, o, u, c, n or s. Instead of repeating, the letter stays put and a row of choices appears above it, each with a number underneath.

Press the number for the accent you want, or click it.
Hold Shift with the letter to get capitals: hold Shift-E and the menu offers É, È, Ê and the rest.
If you wanted the plain letter after all, press Escape and carry on typing.

The menu is the easiest method to remember, because you do not need to know which accent lives on which key. It is also the slowest, since every accented letter means a pause while you wait for the menu.

The choices depend on your current input source, so a French or Spanish layout may offer a different set. For English, the menu covers the common Western European accents and a good number of others.

When holding a key repeats it instead

If holding e types eeeeee instead of showing the menu, press-and-hold has been turned off, either for the whole Mac or for the app you are in. Many Vim users switch it off, often just for their code editor, so that held keys repeat. To turn it back on for every app, run this in Terminal, then quit and reopen your apps:

defaults write -g ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true

A setting made for one app wins over this global one, so if a single app still repeats, undo the change that was made for that app.

Dead keys on the U.S. and ABC layouts

A dead key types nothing by itself. It waits for the next letter and combines the two. While it waits, the accent appears highlighted in your text, so you can see it is pending.

Keys	Accent	Then type	You get
⌥E	Acute	e, a, o, u, i	é á ó ú í
⌥`	Grave	e, a, o, u, i	è à ò ù ì
⌥I	Circumflex	e, a, o, u, i	ê â ô û î
⌥U	Umlaut	e, a, o, u, i	ë ä ö ü ï
⌥N	Tilde	n, a, o	ñ ã õ

A few rules make these predictable:

Capitals: use Shift on the second key. Option-E, then Shift-E, gives É.
The accent on its own: press the dead key, then Space. Option-U, Space gives ¨.
A letter that cannot take that accent: you get both characters side by side, and you can delete the stray one.

Some accented letters have an Option key of their own, with no dead key involved. Option-C types ç, Option-S types ß, Option-A types å, Option-O types ø, Option-Q types œ and Option-’ types æ. Add Shift for their capitals, so Option-Shift-C types Ç. The exception is ß: Option-Shift-S types Í. More of these are in Type special characters on a Mac with the Option key.

ABC Extended for more accents

The U.S. and ABC layouts stop at five accents. If you write Czech, Polish, Romanian, Hawaiian, Māori or Vietnamese, add the layout called ABC Extended, under English in System Settings, Keyboard, Text Input, Input Sources, Edit. It turns many more Option keys into dead keys:

Option-A: macron, for ā, ē, ō, ū.
Option-V: caron, for č, š, ž, ě.
Option-K: ring, for å and ů.
Option-J: double acute, for ő and ű.
Option-M: ogonek, for ą and ę.
Option-W: dot above, for ż and ė.
Option-B: breve, for ă.
Option-C: cedilla, for ç and ş.
Option-L: stroke, for ł.
Option-P: comma below, for ș and ț.

Option-E, Option-U, Option-N and Option-` work as before, and Option-E now takes consonants too, for ć, ń, ś and ź. One change catches people out: the circumflex moves from Option-I to Option-6, and Option-I becomes the horn used in Vietnamese (ơ, ư). Some of the U.S. layout’s Option symbols, such as ∑ and ∂, are gone to make room.

Layouts with accent keys of their own

If you type mostly in one other language, its own layout is faster than any Option combination, because the accents get keys of their own. Switch keyboard layouts on a Mac: QWERTZ, AZERTY, Dvorak, Colemak shows how to add one and flip between them.

French: é, è, ç and à sit on the number row. The key to the right of P is a dead key for ^, and with Shift for ¨.
Spanish: ñ has its own key. The key to the right of it is a dead key for ´, and with Shift for ¨.
German: ü, ö and ä have their own keys. The key to the right of ß is a dead key for ´, and with Shift for `.
U.S. International PC: the US layout with Windows-style dead keys. ’ ” ` ~ and ^ wait for the next letter without any Option key, so ’ then e gives é and ’ then c gives ç. To type a plain apostrophe, press ’ and then Space. People moving from Windows often look for exactly this.

Other ways in

Character Viewer. Press Control-Command-Space (⌃⌘Space), or Globe-E on Macs with a Globe key, open the full Character Viewer with the button at the top right, and search by name, such as acute. Slow for prose, useful for a character you need once.
Text Replacements. In System Settings, Keyboard, click Text Replacements and add a pair, such as cafe to café. Handy for names and words you type often.
Keyboard Viewer. Turn on the Input menu, choose Show Keyboard Viewer, and hold Option. Dead keys are outlined, so you can see which keys wait for a letter. Find any character on your keyboard with the Keyboard Viewer has the details.
Control-Delete. In TextEdit and other apps built on the Mac’s own text system, this deletes just the accent from the letter before the insertion point, turning é back into e.

Showing accents in a tutorial

If you teach a language, or record a tutorial in one, dead keys are hard for viewers to follow: the accent appears on screen a beat before the letter, and nothing shows which keys made it.

Typebar puts every key you press on an on-screen keyboard, so viewers see Option light up, then E, then the letter. Holding Option for a moment relabels the keys with the characters each one types, which is a quick way to show a class where ç, ß and å live without opening another window.

Typebar is $9 once for up to 5 Macs, and free for 24 hours.

Questions

Why does holding a key repeat it instead of showing accents?

Press-and-hold is off, either for all apps or for the one you are using. The Terminal command above turns it back on for all apps.

How do I type a capital letter with an accent?

Hold Shift and the letter to get the capitals in the press-and-hold menu. With a dead key, press the dead key, then Shift and the letter: Option-E, then Shift-E, gives É.

How do I type an accent mark on its own?

Press the dead key, then Space. Option-E, then Space, gives ´.

Which method is fastest?

Dead keys, once your fingers know them. For one language you type every day, that language’s own layout is faster still.