How to Open the Emoji Keyboard on a Mac

The emoji keyboard on a Mac (Apple calls it the Emoji & Symbols viewer) can be opened in several ways, and which one you want depends on whether your hands are on the keyboard or the mouse. Here are all four, the quickest first, plus what to check when the emoji keyboard won’t open.

1. The keyboard shortcut: Control-Command-Space

Put your cursor in any text field and press Control-Command-Space. The emoji keyboard opens right next to your cursor. This is the fastest method and it works system-wide, in Messages, Mail, Notes, Safari and almost every other app, on every recent macOS (Ventura, Sonoma, Sequoia and macOS 26 Tahoe), on Apple silicon and Intel.

2. The Globe (or fn) key

Many Mac keyboards have a Globe key, on built-in laptop keyboards it shares the bottom-left key with fn. On a lot of Macs, a single tap of it opens the emoji keyboard. If yours doesn’t, open System Settings › Keyboard, find Press 🌐 key to, and choose Show Emoji & Symbols. A one-key tap is a little easier than the three-key chord.

3. From the menu bar

Prefer a click target that’s always visible? You can add an emoji button to your menu bar:

1. Open System Settings › Keyboard.
2. Under Input Sources, turn on Show Input menu in menu bar.
3. Click the new input menu icon in the menu bar and choose Show Emoji & Symbols.

From then on the emoji keyboard is one click away in the menu bar, handy on a desktop Mac where your hand is already on the mouse.

4. From the Edit menu

Most Mac apps expose it directly: with your cursor in a text field, open the app’s Edit menu and choose Emoji & Symbols at the bottom. It’s slower than the shortcut, but it’s a reliable fallback when you can’t remember the key combo.

Once it’s open: search instead of scrolling

However you open it, don’t scroll the grid, just start typing. There’s a search field at the top, so type lizard, fire, or party and the results filter as you go. Press Return to insert the top match. You can also drag the picker open into the full Character Viewer for symbols, arrows and accented characters.

When the emoji keyboard won’t open

If nothing happens when you press Control-Command-Space, run through these:

• Is the cursor in a text field? The emoji keyboard only opens when something can actually receive text. Click into a message or document first.
• Is the shortcut taken? Another app or a custom binding can claim Control-Command-Space. Check System Settings › Keyboard › Keyboard Shortcuts for a conflict.
• Try the Globe key or the Edit menu instead. If those work but the shortcut doesn’t, it’s a shortcut conflict, not a broken picker.
• Spotlight stealing the combo? Older setups mapped a similar combo to Spotlight or input switching, reassign whichever one is conflicting.

A faster alternative: open your own emoji keyboard with a keystroke

The built-in emoji keyboard is mouse-driven and floats over your text. If you open it dozens of times a day, there’s a faster habit, the one Slack and Discord trained into you: type a colon and a few letters, see ranked matches, and accept with Tab, without ever opening a picker.

Comoji is a tiny menu bar app that adds this everywhere on your Mac. And when you do want a full, searchable emoji keyboard, you open your own by double-tapping the trigger (:: by default), it pops up at your cursor, you search or arrow to an emoji, and Return drops it straight back into the field you were typing in. It’s the macOS emoji keyboard idea, but keyboard-first and ranked by what you actually use.

For the full set of ways to enter emoji, including Text Replacements and how the colon shortcuts compare, see how to type emoji on a Mac. If your muscle memory comes from chat apps, the Slack-style emoji shortcuts guide walks through setup.

Tired of opening the picker? Download Comoji, grant Input Monitoring and Accessibility, and the emoji keyboard comes to you, one keystroke, any app.