In emacs -Q just need something to get the Alt key bound e.g. (setq mac-command-modifier 'alt) The when you Type A-c you get ยข and you cannot bind it yourself. On a mac I want the key by space to be Alt as that is what is printed on my PC keyboard. I suspect this is true with PCs The issue is that (require 'iso-transl) is called before the user can alter its behaviour and that iso-transl.el then binds to various A-c and other keys. This makes it impossible to use Alt as a modifier key load-history shows ("/Applications/MacPorts/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/lisp/subdirs.el ") ("/Applications/MacPorts/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/site-lisp/subdirs.el ") ("/Applications/MacPorts/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/lisp/leim/leim-list.el ") ("/Applications/MacPorts/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/lisp/international/iso-transl.elc " iso-transl-dead-key-alist iso-transl-char-map iso-transl-language-alist iso-transl-ctl-x-8-map (defun . iso-transl-define-keys) (defun . iso-transl-set-language) (provide . iso-transl)) ("/Applications/MacPorts/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/lisp/tooltip.elc " (require . syntax) In emacs 27 iso-transl was not called that early and only seem to be called by describe-bindings and so could be overridden as shown in Aquamacs Ideally iso-transl should only bind the A- keys if explicitly asked to do so. At least the user shoulkd be able to configure the behaviour - as exising emacs uses this wrong behaviour the default can be this setting of A- keys but the user should be able to set something to stop this. See https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/17508/how-can-i-prevent-override-key-translation-behavior-such-as-%C2%B5-translated-from for other users finding this (and they are not Mac based) In GNU Emacs 28.0.50 (build 1, aarch64-apple-darwin20.6.0, NS appkit-2022.60 Version 11.6 (Build 20G165)) of 2021-10-17 built on mini20.local Repository revision: ccb35fb8fb9de5f069fd0103f24e3048d716febc Repository branch: HEAD Windowing system distributor 'Apple', version 10.3.2022 System Description: macOS 11.6 Configured using: 'configure --prefix=/opt/local --disable-silent-rules --without-dbus --without-gconf --without-libotf --without-m17n-flt --with-libgmp --with-gnutls --with-json --with-xml2 --with-modules --infodir /opt/local/share/info/emacs --with-ns --with-lcms2 --without-harfbuzz --without-imagemagick --without-xaw3d --with-native-compilation --with-rsvg 'CFLAGS=-pipe -Os -isysroot/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX11.sdk -arch arm64' 'CPPFLAGS=-I/opt/local/include -isysroot/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX11.sdk' 'LDFLAGS=-L/opt/local/lib -Wl,-headerpad_max_install_names -Wl,-no_pie -Wl,-syslibroot,/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX11.sdk -arch arm64'' Configured features: ACL GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS JPEG JSON LCMS2 LIBXML2 MODULES NATIVE_COMP NOTIFY KQUEUE NS PDUMPER PNG RSVG THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS XIM ZLIB Important settings: value of $LANG: en_GB.UTF-8 locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix Major mode: Help Minor modes in effect: tooltip-mode: t global-eldoc-mode: t electric-indent-mode: t mouse-wheel-mode: t tool-bar-mode: t menu-bar-mode: t file-name-shadow-mode: t global-font-lock-mode: t font-lock-mode: t blink-cursor-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t buffer-read-only: t line-number-mode: t indent-tabs-mode: t transient-mark-mode: t Load-path shadows: None found. Features: (shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message rmc puny dired dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec epa derived epg rfc6068 epg-config gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs auth-source cl-seq eieio eieio-core cl-macs eieio-loaddefs password-cache json map mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils cl-extra time-date subr-x shortdoc text-property-search seq byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cconv help-fns radix-tree help-mode cl-loaddefs cl-lib iso-transl tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel term/ns-win ns-win ucs-normalize mule-util term/common-win tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors frame minibuffer cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite emoji-zwj charscript charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev obarray cl-preloaded nadvice button loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp files window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote threads kqueue cocoa ns lcms2 multi-tty make-network-process native-compile emacs) Memory information: ((conses 16 80691 8984) (symbols 48 6822 0) (strings 32 21275 2068) (string-bytes 1 715988) (vectors 16 15733) (vector-slots 8 322442 18788) (floats 8 72 30) (intervals 56 355 0) (buffers 992 12)) -- Mark Bestley