Dina Bader: Bring your messages to life with some emoji

How do you emoji recommendations, emoji reactions, and emojifications? It's all in the Messages app!

If you like sending emoji in your texts and iMessages, Apple makes doing that incredibly easy. Between Tapbacks for reacting directly to a message and using machine learning to know which emoji to recommend, Apple understands the importance of these little pictograms to modern communication.

If that doesn't sound important to you, then you haven't seen the kind of cheers emoji get on stage or the amount of interest they generate on social platforms. They're a big, smiley, thumbs-up kind of deal!

If you're looking to spice up your messages to your friends and family, you can litter them with emoji all you want! Here's how you do it!

How do you get emoji recommendations in Messages?
How do you emojify a message?
How do you react with an emoji Tapback in an iMessage?
What do the Tapback emoji reactions mean?
How do you change the emoji reaction Tapback on an iMessage?
How do you delete the emoji reaction Tapback on an iMessage?

How do you get emoji recommendations in Messages?

Apple's predictive QuickType keyboard can suggest emoji as well as, you know, regular words. The predictive keyboard has to be turned on in Settings, and can't be hidden.

Start typing in the Messages text field.
Tap any emoji predictions that show up in the prediction bar. If multiple predictions show up, tap the one you prefer.
Tap the Send button. (Looks like an upward arrow)

Emoji predictions will show up whenever you type something that has a corresponding emoji. For example, "I'm happy" will predict "[smiley face]". "My car" will suggest the "[car]" emoji.

Pro tip: If you don't want the emoji to take the place of the word, but rather appear beside it, put a space between the word before you tap your desired emoji.

How do you emojify a message?

The "emojification" works similarly to emoji recommendations and will work in both iMessages and standard SMS texts.

Type an iMessage in the text field.
Tap the Emoji button on the keyboard.
Tap on a word that's highlighted orange to replace it with its corresponding emoji.
Keep tapping words highlighted until you've "emojified" everything you want.
Tap the Send button (Looks like an upward arrow).

With emojification, you can convert as many — or as few — words to emoji as you like.

How do you react with an emoji Tapback in an iMessage?

Emoji aren't just for replying, they're also for reacting. Apple calls them Tapbacks. They're similar to Slack or Facebook emoji reactions, and drop right onto any iMessage bubble sent your way.

Touch and hold (long press) on an iMessage sent your way.
Tap the Tapback you want to send: Heart, thumbs up, thumbs down, Ha ha, !!, or ?.

There's no need to hit send, the emoji reaction goes immediately.

What do the Tapback emoji reactions mean?

Theoretically, these Tapback reactions can mean whatever you want them too. Context is king and a thumbs up Tapback to your Mom might mean something different than one to your best friend. Here's a basic guide to all the Tapback emoji that are available and what they could mean.

Heart: Like, love, or fav
Thumbs up: Happy, approve, or agree
Thumbs down: Sad, disapprove, or disagree
Ha ha: Laugh, either happily or sarcastically.
!!: Exclaim emphatically.
?: Question.

How do you change the emoji reaction Tapback on an iMessage?

If you reply with the wrong Tapback, or you later decide you want a different Tapback, you can easily make the change.

Touch and hold (long press) on an iMessage with the Tapback you want to change.
Tap the Tapback you want to change to: Heart, thumbs up, thumbs down, Ha ha, !, or ?.