How to Make Square Brackets [ ] on an iPad (Any Keyboard Layout)

How to Make Square Brackets ( [ ] ) on an iPad

by Heinz Tschabitscher | May 12, 2026 | iPhone and iPad Tips and Resources

Struggling to find square brackets on your iPad’s keyboard? Whether you type code, quotes or notes, the hunt wastes precious time Find out here how to input square brackets ( [ ] ) on the iPad ⤓ in any language.

How to Make Square Brackets ( [ ] ) on an iPad (in Any Keyboard Layout)

Time needed: 2 minutes

To produce square brackets using the touch keyboard on an iPad:

  1. Position the text input cursor where you want to insert the opening or closing square bracket.

    Here’s where: Use square brackets for corrections, comments, explanations and elisions (with ellipses) inside quotations as well as transcriptions for foreign terms, for example; put a whitespace character both before the opening and after the closing square bracket, and leave. no space inside the brackets.
    Coding: Square brackets also find common usage in programming, of course, say in regular expressions and array addressing; in addition to the steps given here, many a programmer’s editor will offer additional convenient methods of inserting them.

  2. Tap the .?123 key to access the number and symbol keypad.

  3. Put the finger on ( for the opening square bracket, then swipe down to reveal [.

    Closing bracket: Swipe down on ) for the closing square bracket, ].
    US-English: The shortcut above works for the US-English iPad keyboard layout; for other language and language variant versions, see below.

  4. Let go to insert the bracket character.

    Insert a closing square bracket on an iPad keyboard

On an iPhone? How to Type Square Brackets [ ] on an iPhone

Find Square Brackets on Your iPad Keyboard Layout

To locate the opening and closing brackets for an iPad keyboard:

  1. Tap .?123 for the number keypad.
  2. Look for [ and ], typically in a row above a key’s primary character.
    Example: On a French keyboard layout, [ will be the secondary character above & and ] above “.
  3. Access the bracket with swiping as above.

[All bracketed in?]

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How to Make Square Brackets ( [ ] ) on an iPad: FAQ

Can I use a text replacement to insert square brackets?

Yes.

You can set up a text replacement to entering square brackets, either alone, as a pair or with additional text on your iPad.

Example: To set up a shortcut for entering opening and closing brackets:

  1. Select General | Keyboard | Text Replacement in the Settings app.
  2. Tap +.
  3. Insert the desired combination of brackets and, optionally, text under Phrase using the steps above.
  4. Now enter the character combination you want to use for the phrase under Shortcut.
  5. Tap Save.
    Their word: Apple include information on text replacements in the iPad User Guide.
    Set up a text replacement to enter square brackets fast on an iPad

(Tested with iPadOS 17–18 and 26; first published May 2024, last updated May 2026)

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