How to insert square brackets on your Mac

There are no square brackets on the keyboard on your Mac. With a keyboard shortcut, you can still quickly insert square brackets and not have to copy them from other texts.

Apple has included serious differences for square brackets compared to devices with Windows operating systems, in addition to other shortcuts like "Alt+L" for the @ sign. For overview reasons, you cannot discover square brackets on MacBooks or Apple's wireless keyboards. What even many experienced Apple users do not know, there is a shortcut for square brackets.

Shortcut: Quickly and easily insert square brackets on Mac

If you don't have the time to constantly copy square brackets out of other texts, there is a simple keyboard shortcut how to insert a square bracket:

1. Select the particular text field where you want to insert the square brackets, or open a new "Pages" document.
2. Then press the two keys "alt" (lower left next to the space bar) and the number key "5" simultaneously on your Mac keyboard.
3. Now you should see an opening square bracket in your text field or text document.

You can insert closing square brackets as follows:

If you want to close the square bracket, insert a closing square bracket with the shortcut "alt + 6". Again, please take care that you have pressed both keys. If you have not done so, the number six will appear in your text box.

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