How to Type Emojis on Mac: Keyboard Shortcuts and Tips

The Fastest Way: The Built-In EmojiEmoji
A Japanese word (絵文字) meaning 'picture character' — small graphical symbols used in digital communication to express ideas, emotions, and objects. Keyboard Shortcut

On any Mac running macOS 10.9 (Mavericks) or later, you can open the emoji picker with a single keyboard shortcut:

Control + Command + Space

Press all three keys at once and a small emoji picker floats above your cursor. Click any emoji to insert it directly into your text. It works in almost every app — Messages, Mail, Notes, Pages, browsers, and most third-party apps.

If you want the full Character Viewer instead of the compact picker, click the icon in the top-right corner of the popup window to expand it.

Using the Expanded Character Viewer

The expanded Character Viewer gives you access to every emoji and UnicodeUnicode
Universal character encoding standard that assigns a unique number to every character across all writing systems and symbol sets, including emoji. character on your Mac. Once open, you can:

• Browse by category (Smileys, Animals, Food, Travel, etc.)
• Search by keyword — type "fire" to find 🔥 instantly
• Pin frequently used emojis for quick access
• Browse the full Unicode character set, not just emojis

To keep it open while you work, you can add it to your menu bar. Go to System Settings → Keyboard and enable "Show Emoji & Symbols in menu bar." A small emoji icon 😊 will appear in your menu bar, and one click opens the viewer.

Typing Emojis with the Touch Bar

If you have a MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar (2016–2021 models), emoji shortcuts appear automatically when you're typing in a text field. Look for the smileySmiley
The original yellow circular face icon created by Harvey Ball in 1963, which inspired the design of modern face emoji. face icon on the Touch Bar — tap it to reveal a scrollable row of emoji suggestions.

The Touch Bar also shows context-aware emoji suggestions based on what you type. Type the word "love" and heart emojis like ❤️ and 😍 will appear automatically.

Using Text Replacement to Insert Emojis with Keywords

Mac's built-in text replacement feature lets you trigger any emoji by typing a short phrase. Here's how to set it up:

1. Open System Settings → Keyboard → Text Replacements
2. Click the + button
3. In the Replace field, type a short trigger like :fire:
4. In the With field, paste the emoji 🔥
5. Click Add

Now whenever you type :fire: followed by a space, your Mac will automatically replace it with 🔥. You can build an entire custom emoji shortcode system this way.

Suggested Text Replacement Shortcuts

Typing Emojis in the Terminal or Code Editor

If you work in the terminal or a code editor like VSVariation Selector (VS)
Unicode characters (VS-15 U+FE0E and VS-16 U+FE0F) that modify whether a character renders in text (monochrome) or emoji (colorful) presentation. Code, the standard keyboard shortcut still works — Control + Command + Space opens the picker even inside Terminal.app, iTerm2, and most code editors.

For inserting emojis programmatically, you can also use their Unicode code points. For example, the fire emoji 🔥 is U+1F525. In the terminal you can print it with:

echo -e "\U0001F525"

In VS Code, you can type the Unicode escape directly in a string literal and the editor will display the glyph inline.

Dictation: Say the Emoji Name Out Loud

macOS's Dictation feature (enabled in System Settings → Keyboard → Dictation) can insert some emojis when you say their names. Try saying "thumbs up emoji" or "smiley face emoji" while dictating. Results vary by app and macOS version, but it works well in Messages and Notes.

Enable Dictation with the shortcut you configure in settings — the default is pressing the microphone key or double-tapping the Globe key on newer Macs.

The Globe Key on Newer Macs

MacBooks introduced since 2021 have a Globe key (🌐) in the bottom-left corner of the keyboard where the Fn key used to be. You can configure it to open the emoji picker:

1. Go to System Settings → Keyboard
2. Set "Globe key" to "Show Emoji & Symbols"

Now pressing the Globe key alone opens the emoji picker — no multi-key chord required.

Emoji Picker in Specific Apps

Some apps on Mac have their own emoji insertion methods:

• Messages: Click the smiley face icon 😊 in the message compose area
• Mail: Right-click in the compose window and choose "Emoji & Symbols"
• Slack: Type : followed by a keyword (:fire:, :heart:, :wave:)
• Discord: Same colon-based shortcode system as Slack

Troubleshooting: Emoji Picker Not Opening

If Control + Command + Space doesn't work:

1. Check that no other app has claimed the shortcut — go to System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts and look for conflicts
2. Make sure the app you're in supports text input (the picker only opens in text fields)
3. Restart the "Text Input Menu Extra" by logging out and back in
4. As a fallback, access the Character Viewer from the menu bar emoji icon

Quick Reference

With these methods, you'll never need to copy-paste emojis from a website again. The built-in Mac emoji keyboard is one of the most seamless ways to add expression to any text on your computer.