How to Quickly Type Emoji on Mac with a Keyboard Shortcut There are hundreds of Emoji characters available in the character selector screen, they’re visible in both iOS and OS X too. Keep that in mind if you’re sending messages or posting the emoticons to the web, since a lot of other people using older Macs and Windows machines won’t be able to see them the same way as you do. If the app doesn’t support Emoji display, nothing will be shown, and similarly if an emoji icon is sent to a user who doesn’t have a Mac or iOS device that supports emoji, nothing will be shown for them either, at best it will be a boring old square box instead of the color icon.

Most applications support Emoji characters at this point, though you may notice some third-party applications will not recognize Emoji characters though this is increasingly rare in OS X. Select the character you want to use and either drag and drop the Emoji character into a text field, or double-click on the icon in the “Font Variation” menu on the right. Click on “Emoji” and then choose a set: People, Nature, Objects, Places, Symbols.Scroll down to “Special Characters” (new versions call this menu “Emoji & Symbols”).Below is the step by step guide on how to access and use emoji:įrom almost any Mac OS X app that allows keyboard input – The same basic method of accessing, using, and typing Emoji icons on a Mac works the same in all versions of OS X, whether OS X Yosemite, Mavericks, Mountain Lion, or Lion, it’s all the same. Most have Unicode support too, which is great for cross-platform compatibility. Newer versions of OS X (and iOS) have added even more Emoji icons, with skin tone variations and much more, bringing the total number into many hundreds of emoji options. The Emoji character panel may look slightly different in the variety of versions of OS X, but they all have the same basic character support of several hundred emoji. Some of the characters are pretty funny so even if you have no intention of using them they’re fun to browse through. How to Access and Use Emoji on your MacOsĮmoji are extremely popular picture characters and emoticons that are an integral part of Japanese tech culture and communication, and now that they are included in modern versions of OS X, the Emoji character set is available to everyone on a Mac regardless of your localization settings.Įmoji are quickly taking the world by storm with their inclusion on the iPhone and iPad keyboards as well, and using them on the Mac is a fun way to emphasize dialog and messaging between people.

Type emojis on mac keyboard