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Emoji Shortcuts in Messages

Is there a way to customize emoji's shortcuts in Messages?

for example: when I type ":(" a certain smiley is inserted, I'm not happy with that smiley, and I would like to change that shortcut and assign it to a different smiley. Is that possible? How?


Thank you.

Posted on Jul 5, 2014 4:11 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 5, 2014 5:13 AM

You can open System Preferences > Keyboard > Text. Press the + button in the lower left, and in the replace column, enter “:(” (without the quotes). Now, under the Edit menu, lauch the Special Characters panel, or press control + command + spacebar. In the upper left corner of the Special Characters toolbar is a gear drop down. Select Customize List… and under Symbols, select Emoji. Press Done, and you now have an Emoji category present in your Special Characters left panel.


Now, regarding the first paragraph, double-click the With column adjacent to the replace content you just added. Find the Emoji that you want to represent the “:(" sequence, and double-click the Emoji from the Special Characters palette. It will be inserted into the With field. Quit System Preferences.


Looks like this:


User uploaded file

Now, in iMessage, when you type your frown character sequence, a small panel appears below “:(" with the new Emoji. Just tap the spacebar and it is inserted.

6 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 5, 2014 5:13 AM in response to Ahmad IA

You can open System Preferences > Keyboard > Text. Press the + button in the lower left, and in the replace column, enter “:(” (without the quotes). Now, under the Edit menu, lauch the Special Characters panel, or press control + command + spacebar. In the upper left corner of the Special Characters toolbar is a gear drop down. Select Customize List… and under Symbols, select Emoji. Press Done, and you now have an Emoji category present in your Special Characters left panel.


Now, regarding the first paragraph, double-click the With column adjacent to the replace content you just added. Find the Emoji that you want to represent the “:(" sequence, and double-click the Emoji from the Special Characters palette. It will be inserted into the With field. Quit System Preferences.


Looks like this:


User uploaded file

Now, in iMessage, when you type your frown character sequence, a small panel appears below “:(" with the new Emoji. Just tap the spacebar and it is inserted.

Jul 5, 2014 6:05 AM in response to VikingOSX

Noted.


One very last question:

Is it possible to completely cancel this shortcut prompt? Strangely, the Replace|With columns were empty when I got that undesired smiley suggested everytime I type ":(" What if I did not want any suggestions to pop-up whenever I type ":(" Because I would then need to cancel the suggested-pop-up-bubble manually by moving the mouse cursor to the x button every time. Consequently, that would slow down the flow of my writing.

Emoji Shortcuts in Messages

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