Who ever said you can't have fun at work? And if there's anything that can make your work more fun to read, it's a perfectly chosen emoji.
Used well, an emoji can convey a message more quickly than even the finest words, lighten the mood during a tense period, or just be for fun, no drama needed.
Here's how to add emojis to your Slack messages, using both the desktop app for Mac or PC and the mobile app for iPhone and Android devices.
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How to add emoji on Slack
The method for adding emojis to your text is very simple.
If you're using Slack on your Mac or PC:
1. Open the channel or direct messaging thread that you want to send a message in.
2. At the bottom-right of the chat box, click the smiley face icon.
3. This will open a menu filled with emojis. Click any from the list that you want to add it.
4. As you scroll through the emojis, you'll note that each one has a name. You alternatively can add emojis to your text by typing the name of any emoji, bracketed by colons. In other words, 😄 would become :smile: and so on.
If you're using the Slack mobile app for Android devices or iPhones, you'll have to use the emoji menu that's built into your phone's keyboard — the same one you use for other apps — or type in the emoji 's specific name, like in the steps for the desktop app above.
Certain emoticons will also translate automatically into emojis. These include:
- :) becomes 🙂
- :D becomes 😄
- :P becomes 😛
- :( becomes 😞
...and more.
How to add custom emojis to Slack
If you have permission to do so, you can add custom emojis to that list of emojis. To do this:
1. On your Mac or PC, click the smiley face to open the emoji menu.
2. Click "Add Emoji" at the bottom of the window. If this isn't appearing, it means that you don't have permission to add custom emojis.
3. You'll be asked to upload an image from your computer. Once you do, you'll need to give it a name — remember that it has to be a single word (use underscores instead of spaces), and has to be all lowercase.
4. Click "Save."
Once you've added your first custom emoji, a new section will be added to the bottom of the emoji menu just for your customs.
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