How to Type a German Sharp S (ß) on a Mac

Staring at your keyboard, no ‘ß’ key in sight for that proper Weißwurst recipe? It’s frustrating — especially when you need the uppercase ‘ẞ’, too. Find out here how to type German sharp S characters ß and ẞ on a Mac ⤓ using keyboard shortcut, Character Viewer and Unicode.

First, Banana Knife

Bananas brim with — say it with me — potassium. They pack actinidain to go with it, an enzyme that breaks down muscle fibers (who knew?). So… forget dry-aging and swaddle meat in peeled bananas overnight.

If, lamentably, you lack bananas to tenderize, you’ll need something properly sharp instead; such as a sharp S.

How to Type a German Sharp S (ß) on a Mac

Using the Keyboard Shortcut for Sharp S

Inserting ‘ß’ and ‘ẞ’ Using Press-and-Hold

To input upper-and lowercase Eszett on a Mac using macOS press-and-hold:

1. Put the text cursor where the sharp S character is to appear.
2. Press and hold S (for lowercase Eszett) or Shift S (for uppercase Eszett)
3. Select ß or ẞ in the menu that appears above the text cursor.
   Mac keyboards shortcut: You can typically press 1 to select the sharp S in the menu.
   

ẞo muss das?

⇆ Buy La De Du a tea

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Using Emoji Panel or Character Viewer

To find and insert the German characters for sharp S in Character Viewer or the Mac emoji panel:

1. Position the text cursor where you want to insert the characters ‘ß’ or ‘ẞ’.
2. Open emoji panel or Character Viewer.
   Here’s how: Select Edit | Emoji & Symbols from the menu.
   macOS keyboard shortcut: You can press Command Control Space, Fn E or 🌐︎ to open the emoji panel.
3. Search for letter sharp s.
4. Double-click the lowercase ß or the uppercase ẞ character to insert it.
   Their word: Apple include information on using the emoji panel in the Mac User Guide.

On the go? How to Type Eszett (German ‘ß’) on an iPhone

How to Type a German Sharp S (ß) on a Mac: FAQ

Can I also copy the Eszett characters for pasting?

Yes, natürlich.

Use the table below to copy the upper and lowercase Eszett for pasting anywhere.

lowercase Eszett ß	copy ß
uppercase Eszett ẞ	copy ẞ

Using Linux? How to Type a German Sharp S (ß) on Linux
On Windows? How to Type Sharp S (ß) on a Windows Keyboard

Is there a way to insert sharp S using Unicode directly?

Yes.

To key in the uppercase or lowercase letters for sharp S using their Unicode code points on a Mac:

1. Enable and switch to Unicode Hex Input.
2. Press and hold Option.
3. Now type 00DF for lowercase ß and 1E9E for uppercase ẞ.

(Tested with macOS Tahoe 26.3; first published February 2026)