Is this key the same as shift?
If so, why don't people just call it shift? I spent a long time looking around for what this key means. Google returned no results. My MacBook Air keyboard does not have this symbol either.
The ⌥ key
keyboard
Related Solutions
You could try Ukelele that allows you to edit key mappings for free.
Not sure if this fixes it but It's worth a try:
Open the on screen keyboard viewer and click on the cmd key:
When I have the cmd key pressed down it now becomes unpressed.
If you're not sure where you can find the on screen keyboard viewer it can either be here or you have to enable "Show Keyboard & Character Vieuwers in menu bar" under your keyboard settings. And then click on show keyboard viewer in under the icon in the menu bar. Or just google how to show the on screen keyboard ;)
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Best Answer
That is the Option key ( Alt on Windows).
It's not the same as Shift - it's generally used as a secondary modifier for keyboard shortcuts (Command ⌘ being the primary modifier) and for shortcuts that don't perform an action (e.g. Option-8 is a bullet point
•and Option-Shift-8 is a degree symbol°).From the official "macOS User Guide":