While macOS text suggestions and the emoji keyboard is pretty good. I think Slack’s method of adding emoji’s to text using the colon : symbol is so much easier.
:pizza yields the pizza emoji every time.
Using macOS’s text replacements feature, you can set it up to get quick access to your favorite emojis called up by the colon : or whatever you’d like to represent your emoji.
Setting up text replacements in macOS
In macOS to set up a text replacement, you’ll want to go to > System Preferences > Keyboard.
Once you’re in the Keyboard preferences, click on the Text tab.
Click on the plus + symbol in the lower left corner and you’ll be able to set up a text replacement.
Under the Replace column you’ll want to put in the text macOS should replace like :pizza:.
Now in the With column you’ll want to put the emoji you’d like to replace the text with 🍕.
The great thing is you can get really creative with your text replacements.
For example, I’ve got a text replacement to replace :shrug with the emoji 🤷🏻♂️ but I’ve also got -shrug to replace it with the emoticon version ¯\_(ツ)_/¯