If you’ve just got yourself a new Mac, you might be tearing your hair out trying to work out where the @ key or “at” sign is.
The reason for this is it depends on the country you bought your Mac in and in some cases, which keyboard country setting you have configured on your Mac.
For most people, the confusion is because the @ symbol requires pressing different keys combination on US and UK keyboards.
Here’s how to type the @ sign on a Mac or MacBook based on your region.
1. On US keyboards, hold down the Shift key and press the number 2 key. You will see the @ sign above the number 2.
2. On UK or European keyboards, hold down the Option key (also known as the ALT key) and press the number 2 key.
3. If you’re in another country other than the UK or USA, you may need to change your keyboard region settings before you can type the @ symbol.
To check this go to Apple () Menu > System Preferences > Keyboard and click on the Input Sources tab.
You will see different language settings depending on your country. For example, Spanish users can set keyboards to both “Spanish” (mainly for Latin America) and “Spanish ISO” (for Europe).
Setting it to “Spanish” however requires you to press CMD + G together to get the @ symbol. Setting it to “Spanish ISO” though allows you to type the “at” sign the European way using the Option key plus the number 2 key.
The same goes for other languages such as Swedish.
You can choose either “Swedish” or “Swedish Pro” settings and only the “Swedish Pro” setting allows you to type the “at” symbol using the normal Option key + number 2 key combination.
How To Type @ On Mac: Useful Tips
- If you’re not sure which region or country your keyboard is from, check Apple’s list of keyboard localizations.
- The ALT key and the Option key are the same thing but confusingly, on many European keyboards the word “Alt” doesn’t appear and it just says “Option” with a symbol.
- If you’re using an external PC keyboard connected to your Mac, the ALT key is the same as Option key.
- If you find that suddenly you can no longer type the “at” sign anymore after an update to macOS, it may be because the language settings on your Mac have been reset. If this happens:
- Go to the Apple () Menu > System Preferences.
- Select Language and Region and set your preferred language.
It’s also a good idea to check that your Keyboard settings are also correcting configured to the right language by going to Apple () Menu > System Preferences > Keyboard.
- If all else fails and for some reason you can’t type the @ key on your Mac or MacBook, you can always simply copy and post the @ symbol. You can do this by holding down your trackpad or mouse key, selecting the @ symbol, press the Ctrl key and select “Copy” from the popup menu.
It might seem crazy that doing something as simple as typing the humble @ symbol can get so complicated on a Mac but we hope this has helped. If you still have problems finding it, let us know in the comments below.