Using Emojis On macOS 10.12 Sierra
Follow these instructions to to insert an emoji on a Mac running macOS 10.12 Sierra, 10.13 High Sierra and 10.14 Mojave.
The emoji keyboard for Mac is quick, easy to use, and built in to the operating system. View this tutorial on YouTube or read on for step-by-step instructions.
To use emojis on previous releases of OS X such as El Capitan, check out the relevant guide. The following instructions are for macOS 10.12 Sierra, released in late 2016. The same instructions apply to macOS 10.13 High Sierra (2017), and macOS 10.14 Mojave (2018).
1. Go to any text field, then press the following keys at the same time:
Control ^
Command ⌘
Space
Alternatively, this same feature is available under Edit > Emoji & Symbols
2. An emoji insertion palette will appear. Click any emoji to insert it at the location of your cursor.
3. If you want to see more emojis, either scroll up and down the list, or click another category listed at the bottom of the palette.
4. Tip: If you click-and-hold on some emojis, you get a choice of skin tone. Release on the skin tone of your choice:
Note: Only some emojis are enabled for diverse skin tones. This is mostly the human-looking characters. Families and emojis with more than a single person do not support skin tone modifiers.
Create a palette
To insert more than one emoji without the picker disappearing each time, you need to turn the picker into a palette.
Drag and drop any of the empty space in the emoji picker interface to create a floating emoji palette. This can be placed anywhere on your screen, and closed by clicking the X close button.
Copy and Paste
To see a larger version of these emojis, or to copy and paste an emoji, view all emojis in Safari:
Categories
The order that the emojis are listed in has changed from previous versions of OS X. New categories exist, and this is what they look like.
Smileys & People
Animals & Nature
Food & Drink
Activity
Travel & Places
Objects
Symbols
Flags
See this video of using emojis on OS X 10.11.2 Sierra on YouTube.
Read More
List of All Emoji Meanings
View All Emojis in Safari
How to use Emojis in OS X 10.7 and 10.8
How to use Emojis in OS X 10.9 and 10.10
How to use Emojis in OS X 10.10.3
How to use Emojis in OS X 10.11