How to Type Square Brackets ( [ ] ) on a Mac

Struggling to insert ‘[’ and ‘]’ when you make changes to quoted text, for instance, or give a range of numbers? Find out here how to type square brackets on a Mac, even if you do not spot them initially on your keyboard.

First, Where to Put Your Bakery

One of the first big, factory-like bakeries (with large machinery and division of labor) in the city of Vienna was constructed near the end of the 18th century on top of a hill south of the city’s center.

The location was no accident.

For every morning, dozens upon dozens of heavy horse-drawn carts left the bakery stacked with bread and pastries. They had an easy (and achieved a fast) time going down the hill.

If you are now wondering whether the mills where on a mountain just south of the hill with flour going downhill at night: no, the horses drawing the flour carts were at a disadvantage.

Either way, typing square brackets is all downhill-easy on a Mac:

How to Type Square Brackets ( [ ] ) on a Mac

Using Windows? How to Type Square Brackets ( [ ] ) on Windows

In Microsoft Word for Mac (and LaTeX), you can also use square brackets to create matrices and in other equations.

Got your brackets [squared]?

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Find the Square Bracket Key Combination for Your Keyboard Layout

To discover which key combinations let you insert the square brackets with your Mac’s keyboard:

1. Open Keyboard Viewer.
2. Look for square brackets in the top left corner of keys; you can then reach them pressing Shift and these characters.
3. Press the Option key.
4. Look for brackets on keys or, again, in the top left corner; if they are in the corner, Option Shift and these keys are your ticket.

Examples of Square Brackets on International Keyboards

Here are a few examples for how diverse the placement of brackets can be on the keyboard:

• On a Spanish keyboard, press Shift { for [ and Shift } for ].
• On a French keyboard, press Option Shift ( for [ and Option Shift ) for ].
• Using a Japanese kana layout (not Romaji, which works like the U.S. keyboard for square brackets), press Option  ゛ for [ and Option む for ].
• On a German keyboard, press Option 5 for [ and Option 6 for ].
• Using a Russian Cyrillic keyboard layout, press Shift ] for [ and, well, ] for ].

Different type of squaring: How to Type “Squared” ( ² ) on a Mac

Insert Square Brackets Using Mac Character Viewer

You can also insert square brackets without so much as typing them, of course.

To input brackets with the Mac Character Viewer:

1. Put the text insertion cursor where you want to insert the opening or closing square bracket.
2. 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 bracket.
   Category: In full Character Viewer, you can also open the Parentheses category, of course.
4. Double-click the LEFT SQUARE BRACKET and RIGHT SQUERE BRACKET characters respectively to insert them.
   Emoji panel: Searching for bracket also works in the macOS emoji panel.
   

Brace yourselves: How to Insert Curly Brackets on a Mac

How to Type Square Brackets ( [ ] ) on a Mac: FAQ

Where should I use brackets?

Quoted Text and Phonetics

Use square brackets whenever you change something inside quoted text.
Examples: When you remove a portion, for example, insert […] in its stead; if your quote begins with “She said” and you want to explain who she is, replace “She” with [Mrs. Seacole] said.

Phonetic transcriptions are also usually between square brackets.
Example: bracket [brăk′ĭt].

Mathematics

Square brackets also find many a use in mathematics, of course. A few prominent occasions include:

• Closed interval: Use square brackets to indicate a closed (inclusive) interval.
  Example: [1, 5] means all numbers ≥ 0 and ≤ 5.
• Vector product: Square brackets can stand for the triple product.
  Example: [a⃗, b⃗, c⃗] is equivalent to (a⃗ ⨯ b⃗) · c⃗.
• Matrices: Square brackets that extend beyond the line of text are used for matrices.

Does using Unicode work for typing brackets on a Mac?

Yes.

You can add brackets anywhere in macOS using Unicode:

1. Enable and turn on Unicode Hex Input on your Mac.
2. Press and hold Option.
3. Type 0 0 5 B for [;
   type 0 0 5 D for ].
4. Let go of the Option key.

Can I copy and paste brackets?

Yes, certainly.

If there is no way locating brackets on your keyboard, copy them in the table below for pasting:

left bracket [	copy [
right bracket ]	copy ]

(Tested with macOS Sequoia 15.0–15.5, Sonoma 14.3, Ventura 13.1 and Monterey 12.4; first published January 2022, last updated August 2025)