Smartphones have revolutionized the way we communicate. Emoji are a big part of the reason why, since they’ve helped us communicate quickly while also adding a layer of expressivity to our messages. Whether you’re happy, sad, or anything in between, there’s an emoji that will help you capture your emotions. However, all those emoji won’t do you any good if you can’t figure out how to activate them and work the keyboard.
In this guide, we’ll fill you in on how you can quickly and easily add the emoji keyboard to the Messages app in iOS.
How to enable the emoji keyboard on an iPhone
If you’re champing at the bit to start using emoji on your iPhone, it’s easy to get started. All you need to do is to make sure that you have the emoji font enabled. You’ll know if you do because your keyboard will clearly display the familiar smiley face at the bottom row of your keyboard. If you don’t see it, here’s how to enable it.
Go to Settings on your iPhone and tap General, which you’ll find as you scroll down the list. When you find it, look for and tap Keyboard, and then Keyboards to get to the Add New Keyboard command. Then, swipe down until you find Emoji among the list of foreign languages and various other keyboards. Lastly, tap it.
And that’s all there is to it—the keyboard should be accessible, and ready to use in your next text message.
If you’re not sure whether you’ve successfully added it, look out for the smiley face at the bottom of the keyboard. That means you can get started using it immediately. To use it, tap the smiley icon and you’ll see the entire roster of symbols included in the font. You can use your emoji font with native iPhone apps like Mail, Notes, and Messages and any other app you have that supports Apple’s Color Emoji font.
Of course, if you decide that emojis just aren’t for you, getting rid of the keyboard shouldn’t take more than a few seconds. Simply go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards. From there, tap Edit in the top-right corner, then tap the circular Delete symbol next to Emoji. To confirm, tap Delete.
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