4 easy ways to type emoji on your Mac

Image: AP

Typing emoji on your smartphone is easy. For an onscreen keyboard, changing all the keys to symbols is always just a tap away — even if you don't do it, you've probably accidentally switched to an array of smileys and raised hands from time to time.

On a Mac, however, typing emoji isn't quite so straightforward — after all, a physical keyboard doesn't morph so easily. I've personally witnessed people stop what they're doing on a Mac and switch to the same app on their iPhone just so they can quickly type a "face with tears of joy."

That's a fool's game. It's actually very easy to type emoji on Mac, and there are several ways to do it. Here are the best:

1. Use the OS X emoji keyboard

The Mac has a built-in emoji keyboard that you can call up anytime. Whatever you're doing, just type Command-Control-Space, and a small emoji palette should appear right where you were typing. Click on any of the symbols to type them.

If you don't like keyboard shortcuts, you can also enable the emoji keyboard in two other ways:

  1. In the Finder, select Edit > Emoji & Symbols and the emoji keyboard palette will appear.

  2. Open System Preferences > Keyboard and click on the box for "Show Keyboard, Emoji & Symbol Viewers in menu bar." That will ensure the emoji keyboard can always be accessed in the menu bar, right next to the battery symbol.

To access more than just standard emoji, you can click the command symbol in the top right of the palette to call up an expanded version of the tool, shown above, which includes special symbols for math, arrows and even pictographs. When the tool is expanded, you'll need to drag and drop the symbols to where you're typing. The expanded tool is also a good fallback if the palette is buggy.

2. Set keyboard shortcuts

Sometimes you want to drop some emoji in the middle of an iMessage conversation, and even dialing up the emoji keyboard would take too long. Here's where the Mac's keyboard shortcuts can come in handy. You can easily make it so that when you type a specific phrase, it'll instantly swap it out for a specific emoji.

To set up a keyboard shortcut, go to System Preferences > Keyboard > Text. Click the "+" symbol to add a new shortcut, then, in the Replace field, type the text you want to activate the emoji, say, "smiley". Then, in the "With" field, paste the emoji you want to appear. Close the window and you should be good to go.

Obviously, you'll need to set up different replacement terms or phrases for every emoji you want to type fast, so it's probably only best for the one or two that you use all the time. And the replacement, once set up, may not work in all apps. But for typing emoji ultra-fast, nothing works better.

3. Copy and paste

It's not the most elegant solution, but there's no question it gets the job done: You can just simply navigate to a web page with an emoji index, select the one you want, switch back to your app and paste. We recommend the Get Emoji page, which stays up to date and includes a handy search function where you can find individual emoji by their name or description.

4. Use an app

To some extent, Apple has "Sherlocked" emoji app makers with its built-in emoji keyboard, but there are still a few emoji apps for OS X, and some of them do an arguably better job. Apps like Emoji and Emoji+ will provide quick access to symbols via the menu bar, and some even provide a visual clipboard for you to compose notes with multiple emoji, letting you easy copy and paste it when you're done. Searching for "emoji" in the Mac App Store will call up several options, both paid and free.


BONUS: Want to get lucky? Use more emoji in your texts