How to type in the tilde character '~' with an apple international keyboard?

Question

I am a French developer, used to the French keyboard layout. Being a developer, I invested recently in an Apple international keyboard.

Having a french keyboard, typing in the tilde '~' character was quite simple since it was printed on a key as far as I remember, although I don't remember where.

Now with my new International keyboard, the layout is very different, missing accents and other special character (which is ok since I use that keyboard only for development on my mac) but I am facing the issue that I need to type in the tilde character very often, and I don't have any clue on how to type it in in a simple way.

(PS: To type in the '~' character, I am actually using the "character display pane" coming with Macosx, which is quite cumbersome when you need it often ...)

Answer 1

The "~" key is located between the "left shift" and "Z" keys on the international english keyboard.

Many users are used to have this key under the escape key (the US layout), and they (including me) use the KeyRemap4MacBook software to swap those keys.

Edit: KeyRemap4MacBook is now called Karabiner. Here is a screenshot of the configuration I'm using to remap Section to Backquote key.

Edit: Karabiner does not work on macOS Sierra, however a new project is in development: Karabiner Elements. As of now, it can do the replacement in question:

Answer 2

Type Opt+NSpace.

This works like ã or ñ but on a space.

Answer 3

I had my keyboard set to "Brazilian" in System Preferences > Keyboard > Input Sources

Changing it to "ABC" or "U.S." fixed the issue for me.

Reference: How to output tilde (~) directly

Answer 4

Apple French Keyboard Cheat Sheet

General sequence rules:

Shift Alt-R & then E gives É etc. ` then A gives À etc. Alt-R N then A gives à etc.

General sequence rules for `´and ~: French Keyboard for Apple Cheat Sheet for Special sequences and chords

Option N then space gives ~ then space gives Shift Option & then space gives ´

Option ç gives Ç

Option z gives  Shift Option z gives Å

Option y gives Ú Option ù gives Ù

Option s gives Ò Shift Option m gives Ó Shift Option ^ gives Ô

Option k gives È Shift Option k gives Ë Shift Option e gives Ê

Option i gives î Option h gives Ì Option j gives Ï Shift Option i gives ï Shift Option h gives Î Shift Option j gives Í

Option é gives ë Option ^ gives ô Option a gives æ Option o gives œ Shift Option a gives Æ Shift Option o gives Œ

Option ( gives { Option ) gives }

Option w gives ‹ Shift Option w gives ›

Option è gives « Shift Option è gives »

Option gives @ Shift Option gives # Shift $ gives * Shift Option l gives |

Answer 5

In Yosemite holding down many of the letters a couple of seconds gives a popup window that let's you choose one of various accenting options. For example:

Answer 6

Select US keyboard, use twice: Alt+Command+N

Answer 7

AltGr + 4 twice ~~ in Windows XP.

Answer 8

Try Alt+Ç, my Ç is left of the backspace key