Press and Hold Function for Accents

Apple has not changed anything about this feature. Every time there is an OS update, it goes missing for a few people. Some of the possible fixes are

+add a spanish or french keyboard to system prefs/keyboard/input sources

+Turn off any antivirus apps. They can sometimes interfere with this feature.

+Try a safe boot:

macOS Sierra: Start up in safe mode

+Try setting up a new user account and see if you still have the problem when logged into that.

+Open up the terminal and type in:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true

Hello and welcome to Apple Support Communities, myraheather.
If I understand your post correctly, you need to be able to type accented characters. I'm happy to help.
Click the Apple Menu () > System Preferences > Keyboard and make sure that the Key Repeat slider is not set to off. Then follow the steps here:

Type accented characters

To type an accented or alternate version of a character, hold a key down until its alternate characters are displayed.

To choose one of the characters displayed, type the number that appears under the character, or click the character you want to use. If you decide you don't want to type an accented character after holding a key, type another character, or press the escape (esc) key.

If no additional characters are available for the key you're holding, the pop-over menu doesn't appear. The menu also doesn't appear when the Key Repeat slider is set to Off in the Keyboard pane of System Preferences.

Check out the full article here:
How to type accents, emoji, and symbols on your Mac
Let us know if that resolves this issue for you.
Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities. Take care.

For a list of the standard option key shortcuts, see

http://sites.psu.edu/symbolcodes/mac/codemac/

You can also activate the US International PC keyboard layout, which lets you type accents without the option key.

Actually relatively few people have any problem with the accent menu popup, and normally it can be fixed locally. Other things to try

+Turn off any antivirus apps. They can sometimes interfere with this feature.

+Try a safe boot:

macOS Sierra: Start up in safe mode

+Try setting up a new user account and see if you still have the problem when logged into that.

+Open up the terminal and type in:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain ApplePressAndHoldEnabled -bool true

Have you gone to System Preferences > Keyboard and made sure that the Key Repeat slider is not set to off?

If you have done that and it still does not work, try adding a French or Spanish keyboard to your system preferences/keyboard/input sources list and restarting.

Sarah, this does not work anymore. Key repeat is not off and, after the last update, accent characters no longer work by long-pressing a key. This is extremely frustrating. I, too, need this ability. I don't think Apple should be changing things on people like that. They can add new features but don't force them to take effect unless the user changes the settings. I tried everything and holding down a key (like U) will just repeat the U. If I turn off key repeat, I just get a single U but still no popup with more choices like the German Umlaut for u.

EDIT: thanks Tom! Your method works (option u, then u to get ü). It's more keystrokes than it used to be but it works 🙂

rfogarty67 wrote:

Apparently, there is no function for Apple products for adding accents to letters

A standard way to do this for at least 15 years has been to use option key shortcuts, for example option e then e to get é. Does that not work for you? A full list is at

http://sites.psu.edu/symbolcodes/mac/codemac/

I've found a solution: disabling antivirus (I recently installed a new antivirus. the one I had before, gave no problems, this one does)

it's not a "perfect solution" but it works...

tks

andrea

Hi there,

I faced the exact same issue after an update.

I sort of fixed the issue by changing the Key Repeat slider to off.

But now it takes longer than before for the accents to show up.

rfogarty67 wrote:

it is not a tool which can be generally applied. Instead, Apple have removed choice; only certain letters can have accents applied to them.

Could you indicate what characters you cannot make using this tool and the ABC Extended keyboard layout?

http://sites.psu.edu/symbolcodes/mac/codemacext/

I think fonts are irrelevant to this issue, unless you need to apply accents to some very unusual stuff.

You can also use the Character Viewer if necessary to manually apply Unicode combining accents to any character.

I've tried all of them to no avail. Its like why since the current OS, can I not in Safari save to my favorites bar, at the beginning? No, new favorite added, go to the END of the list. I had 3 geniueses look at it ane they said...thats the way it is......just like not being able to do this again!

Type accented characters

To type an accented or alternate version of a character, hold a key down until its alternate characters are displayed.

ursulafromavon wrote:

I have the exact same problem. Just started today.

Have you tried the fixes listed in my post of July 19?