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@zmwangx
Last active February 4, 2026 19:22
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Unicode characters for special keys on the Mac keyboard (not necessarily Mac specific). #symbols

⌘ – ⌘⌘ – the Command Key symbol
⌥ – ⌥⌥ – the Option Key symbol
⇧ – ⇧⇧ – the Shift Key symbol
⌃ – ⌃⌃ – the Control Key symbol
⎋ – ⎋⎋ – the ESC Key symbol
⇪ – ⇪⇪ – the Capslock symbol
⏎ – ⏎⏎ – the Return symbol
⌫ – ⌫⌫ – the Delete / Backspace symbol
⇥ – ⇥⇥ – the Tab Key symbol

Courtesy The Apple Logo in Unicode; Command, Option, & Shift Symbols in Unicode; and Special Key Symbols. The last one is ultra-complete.

@noah-nuebling
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noah-nuebling commented Jul 20, 2025

Here's another one:

🌐︎ – 🌐︎🌐︎ – the Globe / fn Key symbol

Discussion

Though it looks exactly like it, this is not the globe SF Symbol, it's an emoji with a text-style modifier. See its Wiktionary page.

About the fn and globe SF Symbols

In macOS, the fn SF Symbol seems to be used instead of the globe SF Symbol, unless the attached keyboard reports the "SupportsGlobeKey" property in the IORegistry. (See this StackOverflow post).

I investigated, but came to the conclusion, that the fn SF Symbol probably doesn't have a standard unicode equivalent like 🌐︎. Investigation:
As of macOS 15 (Sequoia), in System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts..., the textfields only display Unicode characters. So Apple substitutes 🌐︎ for the globe SF Symbol. To substitute the fn SF Symbol, they simply use the character sequence fn (including the trailing space), which strongly suggests that there's no dedicated Unicode substitute.

I hope that was insightful or useful for someone!

@April-June-August
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@noah-nuebling I was making a tool to search through menu bar items and found this piece of info very helpful. Thank you.

@Sim3-14159
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Also, different than Return, there is the Enter key: ⌤ – ⌤⌤

I am also making a menu bar in a project, and I found this helpful, too.

@meermanr
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meermanr commented Feb 4, 2026

Extended list:

Symbol Command Unicode name HTML Entity
Command Place of interest ⌘
Shift Upwards white arrow ⇧
Option Option key ⌥
Control Up arrowhead ⌃
🌐 / fn Globe / fn Globe with meridians 🌐
Return Return symbol ⏎
Enter Up arrowhead between two horizontal bars ⌤
Delete Erase to left ⌫
Forward delete Erase to right ⌦
Clear Clear ⌧
Tab Rightwards arrow to bar ⇥ ⇥
Backtab Leftwards arrow to bar ⇤ ⇤
Space Open box ␣ ␣
Escape Broken circle with northwest arrow ⎋
Caps lock Upwards arrow from bar ⇪
Eject Eject symbol ⏏
Page up Upwards arrow with double stroke ⇞
Page down Downwards arrow with double stroke ⇟
Home Northwest arrow ↖ ↖
End Southeast arrow ↘ ↘
Left Leftwards arrow ← ←
Right Rightwards arrow → →
Up Upwards arrow ↑ ↑
Down Downwards arrow ↓ ↓

@Sim3-14159
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Additionally, there's another Enter key symbol: ⌅ (a "projective"). It's very similar to ⌤ (an "up arrowhead between two horizontal bars"), but it was also used to symbolize a column break.

The projective was used more commonly on Macintosh keyboards to symbolize the Enter key, and the up arrowhead between two bars was more in software menus.

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