How to type the degree symbol on a Mac (°)
The shortcut is Shift-Option-8. The catch: two neighboring keys produce lookalikes that read fine to a human and break in a spreadsheet.
How do I type the degree symbol on a Mac?
Press Shift + Option + 8 and macOS types °. It works in any text field, any app, no setup required. For temperature, just follow it with the letter: 72°F, 20°C.
Don't grab the wrong one
Two nearby shortcuts produce characters that look almost identical to ° at normal reading size, and both are wrong. Option + 0 types º, the masculine ordinal indicator — the character Spanish uses in "1º" and "2º". Option + K types ˚, a standalone ring diacritic used in phonetic notation. Neither is Unicode's DEGREE SIGN (U+00B0). Autocomplete and muscle memory both nudge people toward Option+0 especially, since it's easier to hit than Shift+Option+8. It's a real problem if you're pasting temperatures into a spreadsheet or a script — the wrong character won't sort, search, or convert correctly even though it reads fine to a human eye.
| Symbol | Keystroke | Unicode | What it actually is |
|---|---|---|---|
| ° | Shift + Option + 8 | U+00B0 | Degree sign — the one you want |
| º | Option + 0 | U+00BA | Masculine ordinal indicator |
| ˚ | Option + K | U+02DA | Ring diacritic |
Both near-misses exist for real reasons elsewhere in the layout, which is part of why they're easy to hit by accident. Option+0 is the ordinal indicator some Spanish and Portuguese keyboards rely on constantly, so it earned an easy-to-reach key on every US layout too. Option+K is a standalone ring diacritic, the same mark that sits above the A in Å — useful on its own in phonetic transcription, less useful glued to a temperature.
Other built-in routes
If the shortcut slips your mind, ⌃ + ⌘ + Space opens the system character picker — type "degree" and double-click the result. It's slower than the keystroke but doesn't need you to remember anything.
To see exactly what any key combination produces before you commit to it, open Keyboard Viewer: enable it under System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources → Show Input Menu in menu bar, then pick "Show Keyboard Viewer" from that menu. Hold Shift and Option and watch ° highlight on the 8 key in real time — a good way to double-check any shortcut on this page, on any keyboard layout.
Writing HTML directly? The entity ° (or the numeric °) renders ° without touching your keyboard at all.
Faster with Mojito
Mojito adds a third option that skips both the keystroke and the picker: type ::degree anywhere and it autocompletes to ° at your cursor, in whatever app you're already in. Same trigger pattern works for the rest of the symbol set — ::pi, ::euro, arrows, Mac key glyphs — so you're not memorizing a different shortcut for each one.
::deg, press Return, get °.More degree-sign questions
What's the difference between °, º and ˚?
° (U+00B0) is the degree sign, for temperature, angles, and coordinates. º (U+00BA) is the masculine ordinal indicator, used after numbers in Spanish and Portuguese. ˚ (U+02DA) is a ring diacritic, mostly seen combined with letters in phonetic transcription. They come from different Unicode blocks and aren't interchangeable, even though most fonts render them within a pixel or two of each other.
How do I type degrees on the iPhone keyboard?
Press and hold the 0 key — a small popup with ° appears above it. Slide up to insert.
Why does my degree sign look wrong in some fonts?
Some monospace and display fonts draw ° small and low, closer to the baseline, which can make it look like a stray dot next to a number. That's a font rendering choice, not a sign you typed the wrong character — check the actual code point if you're unsure, rather than trusting how it looks on screen.
How do I type the degree symbol in HTML?
Use the entity °, or the numeric reference ° — both render as °. Either is safer than pasting the character raw if your file's encoding is ever in doubt.
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