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Enable Emoji Keyboard for Mac OS X 💻

OS X 10.11 El Capitan

Follow these simple instructions for how to insert emoji on a Mac, running the latest OS X software. View this tutorial on YouTube.

These instructions apply to OS X 10.11.1 El Capitan. For previous releases of OS X, check out the relevant guide.

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 in OS X 10.11.1 El Capitan.

Create a palette

Drag and drop any of the empty space in the emoji picker interface to create a floating emoji palette. This lets you insert more than one emoji without the picker disappearing each time.

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 emoji on OS X 10.11.1 El Capitan in action on YouTube.

Read More

  • List of All Emoji Meanings
  • View All Emojis in Safari
  • How to use Emoji in OS X 10.7 and 10.8
  • How to use Emoji in OS X 10.9 and 10.10.0
  • How to use Emoji in OS X 10.10.3

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