How to type the copyright symbol on a Mac

Why G?

Apple placed © on the G key because the C key was already used for ç (Option + C). Once you know that, the rest of the legal marks follow a pattern: ® is on R and ™ on 2, next to where the at sign lives. Holding Option and looking at the Mac Option key map is a quick way to learn the rest of the layer.

If Option + G gives something else

The shortcut belongs to the US, US-International and British layouts. Other layouts move it; on German, for example, © is Option + G as well, but on French it is on a different key. Enable Show Keyboard Viewer in the input menu and hold Option to see where it sits on yours. When in doubt, the Character Viewer (Control + Command + Space, search “copyright”) always works.

Writing a proper copyright notice

A standard notice has three parts: the symbol, the year of first publication and the owner. For a site updated over years, a range is common: © 2019–2026 Example Ltd. Use the en dash between years (Option + hyphen on a Mac). In HTML, write © if you cannot type the symbol directly; the copyright symbol page lists every code.

A replacement for (c)

Unlike Word on Windows, macOS does not turn (c) into © out of the box. You can add that yourself: System Settings → Keyboard → Text Replacements → + with Replace “(c)” and With “©”. The same list is the place to add ® and ™ if you prefer typing codes. The whole family of marks is gathered in legal symbols.