German Letters Copy and Paste - Umlauts & Special Characters (Ä Ö Ü ß)

The Umlauts: Ä, Ö, Ü

German uses three umlauted vowels — ä, ö, ü — plus their capitals Ä, Ö, Ü. The two dots aren't decoration; they mark a distinct sound. Schon means "already"; schön means "beautiful". Mutter is "mother"; Mütter is "mothers". Drop the umlaut and you've changed the word.

The ASCII fallback column matters: in domain names, email addresses, plain-text systems, and crossword puzzles, Germans replace ä with ae, ö with oe, ü with ue, and ß with ss. That's why you'll see Mueller on a passport but Müller on a business card.

The Eszett: ß and the New Capital ẞ

The Eszett (also called scharfes S, sharp S) is unique to German. It started life as a ligature of long-s and z in old printing, and today represents a sharp, voiceless "s" sound after long vowels and diphthongs. Compare Maße (measurements, long a) with Masse (mass, short a) — same sound, different vowel length.

The 1996 spelling reform tightened the rules: use ß only after a long vowel or a diphthong (Straße, heiß, weiß, Fuß). Use ss after a short vowel (dass, muss, Fluss, Kuss). The classic example: pre-reform daß became post-reform dass.

For decades there was no capital ß — you had to write STRASSE in all caps. That changed in 2017, when the Council for German Orthography officially adopted the capital ẞ. Unicode added it as U+1E9E. You'll still see SS in older signage, but ẞ is now the correct form.

Note: Swiss Standard German doesn't use ß at all. Everything is written with ss, so Straße becomes Strasse in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

Typing German Letters on a US Keyboard

The buttons above give you instant copy-paste, but here are the shortcuts if you're typing often.

Windows

Hold Alt and type the code on the numeric keypad:

• Alt+0228 = ä, Alt+0196 = Ä
• Alt+0246 = ö, Alt+0214 = Ö
• Alt+0252 = ü, Alt+0220 = Ü
• Alt+0223 = ß, Alt+7838 = ẞ (capital, needs UnicodeInput)

Mac

• Option+U then a vowel = umlaut (ä ö ü)
• Option+S = ß
• Hold the base letter to pop up an accent picker

iPhone and Android

Long-press A, O, U, or S to bring up the umlaut and Eszett options. Or switch to a German keyboard in Settings — the letters appear on the primary layer.

When to Use Umlauts (and Common Mistakes)

• Proper names: Müller, Schröder, Köln, Düsseldorf, München, Zürich. The ASCII version (Mueller, Cologne, Munich) is acceptable in English but isn't the German spelling.
• Plurals and conjugations: umlauts often mark a plural (Mann → Männer, Buch → Bücher) or a verb form (fahren → fährt). Skip them and the grammar breaks.
• ä vs ae confusion: Germans accept "ae" in URLs and email but write "ä" everywhere else. Inside Germany, writing Maedchen in a school essay would be marked wrong.
• ß vs ss after the reform: a quick rule — if the vowel before is long, use ß. If short, use ss. Floß (raft, long o) vs Fluss (river, short u).
• Capital ẞ vs SS: in all-caps text, STRAẞE is now correct, but most signs and most older publications still write STRASSE. Both are accepted.