Mac is a good option for whatever purpose you wish to use it. It won't let you down, most of the times. However, there are some instances when your Mac will pose a certain issue and stop starting up properly. In this case, being familiar with the Mac Startup keys can help you a lot. Therefore, in this post, I will demonstrate everything you need to know about the 20 Most Important Mac Startup Keys. After knowing about them, you can use them anytime you need and get rid of the unwanted trouble.
Let's begin our quest to learn about the Mac Startup keys.
No need to purchase an apple keyboard. On a generic USB keyboard the Alt key works as Option, and the Windows key works as Command. The positions of those two keys are generally reversed from a mac keyboard, so some people swap the function of those keys in the OSX control panel. The answer to the question of where is the Option key is simple. The Option key on a Mac, otherwise known as the Alternate key, is usually labelled with the letters Alt and the ⌥ symbol.
Contents
- 1 What are Mac Startup Keys
- 1.2 Some important things to remember
What are Mac Startup Keys
For a basic definition, using Mac startup keys simply means pressing a key or holding a combination of keys during startup to access certain features that are available at the time of booting.
Usually, your Mac works completely fine. Until the moment, it refuses to start up properly due to an unexpected system error, a poorly behaving app, a corrupted system component and some other threat. Also, if you consider a situation other than this, different people have different needs for starting up their computer.
As an example, you could be a geek who dual boots between OS X and Windows on a regular basis. On the other hand, there are users who want to boot a Mac from a disk other than their designated startup disk. Or, you are a casual user looking to isolate the cause of a software problem in the Safe Mode or, boot right into Recovery OS as the last option.
There can be several other scenarios too. Knowing about the Mac Startup keys will help you in all these situations.
20 Important Mac Startup Keys & Combinations
This is a quick guide of the keyboard shortcuts you can use to access useful Mac OS X features which are only available at the time of booting.
If you want to boot your Intel-based Mac into any of OS X's inbuilt startup modes, you must press and hold one or more keys detailed below after turning on the computer. Make sure you press the keys immediately after hearing the startup sound unless some other way is specified.
- Power (⎋): Manually restart
- C: Boot from CD/DVD
- Option (⌥): Startup Manager
- Command (⌘)—S: Single-User Mode
- T: Target Disk Mode
- Command (⌘)—V: Verbose Mode
- Shift (⇧): Safe Mode
- Command (⌘)—R: Recovery OS
- Command (⌘)—Option (⌥)—R: Internet Recovery OS
- D: Apple Hardware Test
- Option (⌥)—D: Apple Hardware Test over the Internet
- N: Boot from NetBoot server
- Option (⌥)—N: Boot from NetBoot server using the default image
- Media Eject, F12, mouse button or trackpad button: Eject removable media
- X: OS X Startup Volume- It will start up your Mac from an OS X startup volume when it'd otherwise boot from a non-OS X volume, like a Windows partition.
- Hold down the Shift (⇧) key after clicking the Log In button in OS X's login window until the desktop appears: Prevent Login Items from opening- It will override your current settings and prevent Login Items and Finder windows from your last session from opening when you log in.
- Hold the left Shift (⇧) key after OS X's boot progress indicator appears: Prevent automatic login- If you enabled the option to automatically log a specific OS X account every time your Mac starts up, you can override this setting with this shortcut.
- Command (⌘)—Option (⌥)—P—R, then release the keys after you hear the startup sound for the second time: Reset PRAM/NVRAM
- Shut down your Mac, and then press and hold the left-side Shift (⇧)—Control (⌃)—Option keys along with the Power (⎋) button, all at the same time, until the computer turns on. Now release the keys and then turn your Mac back on using the power button: Reset SMC
Some important things to remember
There are certain things which you should remember and know when you want to use the Mac Startup keys. These will make sure that you don't mess things up and also make you inform against the incoming issues. An aspiring pro should always acquire additional information. Take a quick look at these.
The Startup Sounds
Where Is The Option Key
You should never turn the volume all the way down before restarting your Mac. Hearing the startup tunes other than the familiar startup sounds is the initial step in determining what might be causing issues that your computer is experiencing.
Other than the diagnosis part, Startup sounds are also important for using some of the Mac Startup keys. Neo geo mac. So, you should always keep the Startup chimes up to the audible stages.
Startup Key Combinations Not Responding
There are some Mac notebook models on which the startup key combinations might not respond under certain situations. For example, if you are using an early-2015 12-inch MacBook model and have an Apple's Bluetooth keyboard connected to it, these key combinations will not work on your wireless keyboard.
To solve this problem, you can simply use the MacBook's built-in keyboard to get to Startup Manager, Recovery Mode, Single User Mode, Safe Mode and other features that are available at boot time.
Another solution is to connect any standard USB keyboard to your Mac via a USB-C adapter. This keyboard will make you able to use the Mac Startup keys without any hassle.
Where Is Option Key On Mac Keyboard
Don't use the Startup Keys if you are in confusion
This might seem pretty obvious but it is actually important. If you have any kind of confusion in your mind or if you are unaware of the Startup keys, just don't try to use them unless you have cleared the mist. Take a picture, screen capture it, screenshot it or put a bookmark at the Quick Guide of the Mac Startup keys present above, so you can use it as a reference any time you wish to use the keys.
Conclusion
Knowing about the Mac Startup keys is very important if you want to explore the functionalities of Mac that are only available at the booting time. These were the 19 Most Important Mac Startup keys. For any doubts, queries or suggestions, feel free to visit the Comments section. Hope I helped you in some way.
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If you're writing in a language other than English, you'll likely need to know how to include accent marks. You know, like voilà, olé, or über.
Fortunately, there are a couple easy ways to do this on a Mac. In this article, we'll go through the main methods so you can add accents to your text with ease.
The Press and Hold Accent Method on Mac
If you're not in a rush and you want to see all the common accent options at a glance, there's an easy way to do that.
Simply press and hold the key on which you'd like the accent to appear, and a number of options will come up above the letter, like this:
When you see the type of accent you'd like to add, just type that number and the accent will be added to the letter. You can also use the left and right arrow keys (and enter) to select which one you want.
So, for example, if you wanted the second option, above, you'd press and hold e, then press 2 (or press the right arrow key once and then enter).
This method works well if you don't mind the time it takes for that little accent menu to pop up. But it doesn't always include all accents in every language. And it does slow down your flow, especially if you're typing a whole article in another language. Whew, that's a lot of added time.
Steam for mac os mojave. Fortunately, there's another common method that involves keyboard shortcuts. And gives you all the options, as well.
The Option Key Accent Method on Mac
The Option key helps you add all kinds of accent and diacritic marks to your text. Just press and hold the Option key (the same as the Alt key), then press the 'e' key, and then release them and press the letter key to which you'd like to add the accent.
For example, if you'd like to add an acute accent (´) to the letters a, e, i, o, or u, you'd press Option + e, and then the letter to which you'd like to add the accent. So, Option+e+a gets you á.
But what if you want a different sort of accent, like a grave or umlaut? Don't worry – there are option key combos for those, too (and more).
- Option + ` + letter = grave accent à, è, ì, ò, or ù (like this: Voilà)
- Option + i + letter = circumflex accent â, ê, î, ô, or û (like this: Crêpe)
- Option + n + letter = eñe character ñ, ã, or õ (like this: El Niño)
- Option + u + letter = umlaut accent ä, ë, ï, ö, or ü (like this: Über)
- Option + a or Shift + Option + A (for capital A) = å or Å
- Option + ' or Shift + Option + ' = æ or Æ (ligatured ae)
- Option + q or Shift + Option + Q (for capital letters) = œ or Œ
- Option + c or Shift + Option + C (for capital) = ç or Ç
- Option + o or Shift + Option + O (for capital) = ø or Ø
- Shift + Option + ? = ¿
- Option + 1 = ¡
- Option + 5 = ∞
Once you memorize these combinations, you can incorporate the keystrokes right into your typical typing flow. And you can always bookmark this article in case you forget :).
Bonus: Other Option Key combos on Mac
What if you need to type some math symbols? Or the symbol for the Euro currency? You'll need more than just accent options.
Well, did you know – your basic English-language keyboard is hiding all those special characters right in (almost) plain sight?
By holding the option key and pressing any of the letters/numbers/punctuation marks, you can create a completely different character than what's printed on your keyboard.
So how do you know what each key combo gets you? Don't worry – your Mac can tell you. It just takes a few steps to find that info.
Step 1: Go to System Preferences
Find the Apple icon in the upper left corner, and click it. Then select 'System Preferences' from the dropdown menu.
Select the Keyboard icon, and you'll see this box:
Make sure the 'Show keyboard and emoji viewers in menu bar' is checked (as it is in the image above). Winzip for mac free.
Step 2: Click the keyboard icon in your top menu bar
Now you'll see a little keyboard icon in your top menu bar, next to your bluetooth and wifi symbols/icons. Click it, and select 'Show keyboard viewer'.
That will bring up an image of your keyboard as it's configured on your Mac:
Step 3: Press the Options key
Now, if you hold down the Options key, it'll show you what else all those keys can do, like this:
You can see the most common accent marks highlighted in orange above. Those are the keys that, when combined with the Option key, give you those accent marks (as you learned above).
You'll also see all kinds of other useful symbols, like currency symbols, math symbols, and so on. So if you ever need a quick reminder about what keys to press when you need to write the Greek letter µ (miu), for example, just reference this chart.
How to Add Accents on Windows with the International Keyboard
If you want to use shortcuts to include accents and special characters without switching to an entirely different keyboard layout, you can enable the international keyboard.
First, press the Windows key, type 'Language', and click on 'Language Settings' to open the language menu:
Then under 'Preferred languages' click on 'English' and 'Options' to open the language options menu:
Under 'Keyboards', click the 'Add a keyboard' button and click on 'United States-International' to add the international keyboard to your system.
To enable the international keyboard, move your mouse down to the taskbar and click on 'ENG US', then click on 'ENG INTL':
Alternatively, hold down the Windows key and press Space to cycle through your installed keyboard layouts.
The main difference between the normal US keyboard layout and the international layout is that some keys work as a sort of 'accented character lock'.
For example, to type a single apostrophe (') with the international keyboard enabled, just type ' + Space. For a double quotation mark, just type ' + Space. And backticks work the same way with ` + Space.
With that out of the way, here's how to type some common accents with the Windows 10 international keyboard:
- ` + letter = grave accent à, è, ì, ò, or ù (like this: Voilà)
- ^ + letter = circumflex accent â, ê, î, ô, or û (like this: Crêpe)
- ~ + letter = eñe character ñ, ã, or õ (like this: El Niño)
- ' + letter = umlaut accent ä, ë, ï, ö, or ü (like this: Über)
- Right Alt+ w or Shift + Right Alt + W (for capital A) = å or Å
- Right Alt + z or Shift + Right Alt + Z = æ or Æ (ligatured ae)
- Right Alt + < or Shift + Right Alt + < (for capital) = ç or Ç
- Right Alt + l or Shift + Right Alt + L (for capital) = ø or Ø
- Right Alt + ? = ¿
- Right Alt + 1 = ¡
But you might have noticed that there's no shortcut to type œ, Œ, or ∞ with the international keyboard.
For that, let's take a quick look at another way to type accents, special characters, and symbols on Windows 10.
How to Add Accents on Windows with the Emoji Panel
The emoji panel makes it easy to scroll through all the available emoji and add one to a message. But you can also use the emoji panel to quickly add an accented or special character, too.
Use the shortcut Windows Key + . to open the emoji panel:
To add accents or special characters, press the symbols button at the top:
Then scroll through the menu and click on the accent or character you want:
Also, you can click around the different menus at the bottom for different types of symbols. For example, ∞ is in the 'Math symbols' section:
And that should be everything you need to know to type accents and other special characters on both Mac and Windows. Adiós!