The built-in emoji picker on your Mac makes it easy to insert emojis while texting, typing notes, or drafting social media posts. If you use it regularly, you may want to get around it quickly. Below, I’ll share some tips that helped me master the emoji picker in macOS.
1 The Quickest Way to Open the Emoji Picker
Sure, many of you may be familiar with this method, but if you’re someone who accesses the emoji picker from the macOS menu bar (Edit > Emoji & Symbols), you may want to start using the keyboard shortcut.
All you need to do is press the Fn/Globe key on the keyboard. You can also bring up the emoji picker by pressing Fn + E or Command + Control + Space if you’ve remapped or disabled the Globe key from keyboard settings.
2 Expand and Search the Character Viewer
By default, when you press the Globe key, you’ll see the built-in emoji picker in its basic layout. However, you can expand it for a detailed view so that you can search and find emojis, symbols, and special characters easily.
Once you bring up the emoji picker on your screen, click the window icon in the top-right corner. You’ll now see the Character Viewer window with a search field in the top-right corner.
You can simply type the name of the emoji or character you want to find or select one of the appropriate categories in the left sidebar.
3 Clear Frequently Used Emojis and Characters
Not a fan of the emojis you used during your conversations recently? You can remove the frequently used characters from Character Viewer by following these two simple steps:
- Click the ellipsis (…) button in the top-left corner of the Character Viewer window.
- Choose Clear Frequently Used Characters from the dropdown menu.
Once you do this, the Frequently Used category in the left sidebar will disappear immediately. Now, you can build your new list of most-used emojis from scratch.
4 Disable Smart Emoji Suggestions
If your Mac is running macOS Sonoma or later, the emoji picker doesn’t show up when you press the Fn/Globe key or Command + Control + Space as you’re typing. Instead, macOS scans the last word and shows up to three emoji suggestions. For example, if you type “fruits” and press the Globe key, you’ll only see three relevant suggestions.
So, what if you need more options? Well, you can press the Fn/Globe key again to bring up the emoji picker, but that isn’t as convenient. Fortunately, you can disable these smart emoji suggestions by entering the following command after opening Terminal on your Mac:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/UIKit.plist emoji_enhancements -dict-add Enabled -bool NO If you want to re-enable these suggestions again at some point, you can type this command and hit the Return key:
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/FeatureFlags/Domain/UIKit.plist emoji_enhancements -dict-add Enabled -bool YES Now, restart your Mac to apply these changes. From now on, when you press the Fn/Globe key while you type, macOS will bring up the emoji picker instead of showing suggestions.
I hope all these tips I shared here help you get the most out of the built-in emoji picker or Character Viewer on macOS. Remember that it’s not just for inserting emojis but also for typing accented letters, special characters, and symbols on your Mac.
