Emoji keyboard shortcut on Mac: Control + Command + Space (and faster ways)
The emoji keyboard shortcut on a Mac is ⌃ Control + ⌘ Command + Space. On keyboards with a Globe key, 🌐 fn + E does the same, and you can set the Globe key alone to open it. Both work in every app with a text field.
What is the emoji shortcut on Mac?
Press ⌃ Control + ⌘ Command + Space while the cursor is in a text field. A small emoji picker appears next to the cursor. Start typing to search, use the arrow keys to move, and press Return to insert the emoji. Press Esc to close it. The shortcut has worked the same way since OS X Mavericks (2013).
How to open the emoji picker with the Globe or fn key
Apple keyboards made since 2021 have a Globe key (🌐) in the bottom-left corner, shared with fn. Apple’s current documentation gives 🌐 fn + E as the emoji shortcut. To make the Globe key open the picker by itself:
- Open System Settings → Keyboard.
- Find the pop-up menu labelled Press 🌐 key to (or Press fn key to on older keyboards).
- Choose Show Emoji & Symbols.
From then on a single tap of the Globe key opens the emoji keyboard. The other options in that menu are Change Input Source, Start Dictation and Do Nothing, which is why the key does nothing useful on many Macs out of the box.
How to search, browse and change skin tone in the picker
- Search: just type. “thumbs”, “laughing face” and “heart” all work, and so do Unicode names like “rightwards arrow”.
- Skin tone: click and hold an emoji that has skin tone variants, then pick one. There is no global default for the built-in picker; you choose each time.
- Frequently used: the first row shows your recent emojis.
- Full Character Viewer: click the small icon in the top-right corner of the picker to expand it. The full viewer adds categories for arrows, math symbols, currency, pictographs and every Unicode block, which is where to find characters like ✓ or →.
- Menu alternative: in most apps, Edit → Emoji & Symbols opens the same picker.
Why the Mac emoji shortcut is not working
The shortcut itself is rarely broken. These are the usual causes, in order of likelihood:
- No text field is active. The picker needs a blinking cursor. Click into a text field first; otherwise macOS opens the floating Character Viewer window instead, or nothing visible happens.
- The Globe key is set to something else. Check System Settings → Keyboard → Press 🌐 key to, as described above. Use ⌃ + ⌘ + Space as the fallback; it does not depend on that setting.
- Another app took the shortcut. Launchers, clipboard managers and input method switchers sometimes bind ⌃ + ⌘ + Space. Look in that app’s hotkey settings.
- The picker opened off-screen or collapsed. Press the shortcut again to close it, then once more to reopen. If it keeps appearing as a tiny window, click the expand icon in its corner and then collapse it again.
- An external non-Apple keyboard. Windows-layout keyboards have no Globe key. Use ⌃ + ⌘ + Space, or set a key to Globe under System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Modifier Keys.
How to type emojis faster on a Mac
The built-in picker is fine for an occasional emoji. It gets slow when you use the same ten emojis all day, want a GIF, or need symbols that are buried in the full Character Viewer. Three faster options:
- Text replacements. System Settings → Keyboard → Text Replacements lets you expand
:shrug:into 🤷 or--into an em dash. Free, but you maintain the list by hand. - A menubar app. Emojibar sits in the menubar: click it (or use its hotkey), search, click an emoji, GIF or glyph, and it is on your clipboard. Your most-used items sort to the top and the skin tone you set applies everywhere. It is a native app, costs $4 once, and has no subscription.
- Slack-style autocomplete apps. Rocket and Mojito let you type
:thumbsup:in any app and expand it inline. See the comparison of Mac emoji pickers for how they differ.
Emoji shortcuts on Windows, Chromebook and phones
Windows uses ⊞ Win + ., Chromebooks use Search + Shift + Space, and phones have an emoji key on the keyboard. The emoji keyboard shortcuts for every platform page has the full table.