Guides

How to dictate emoji on a Mac, from heart emoji to a smiley face

By Ryleigh Newman · Published October 5, 2026

To dictate emoji on a Mac with Apple Dictation, say the emoji's name followed by the word emoji, such as heart emoji, and Dictation types the emoji, in the languages where Apple supports it. In YapToText, the free app I built, you put insert in front of the name, as in insert heart emoji, and any of its 158 spoken emoji lands right where you said it.

One phrase trips people up: in Apple Dictation, smiley face types the text emoticon :-), not the yellow face. I built YapToText because my hands make typing difficult, and hunting through an emoji grid with a trackpad is exactly the kind of small task that wears them out. This page covers both ways to say an emoji, the Emoji & Symbols viewer for the ones you would rather pick, and the fixes for an emoji name that types as words.

Download for free. No account, nothing locked, macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon. Source on GitHub.

Steps

1. Click where the emoji should go.
2. With Apple Dictation, start Dictation and say the emoji's name followed by the word emoji, such as heart emoji.
3. With YapToText, tap Right Command, say insert and the emoji's name, such as insert party emoji, and tap Right Command again.
4. To find or rename a YapToText emoji, open the Commands page and click the Emoji tab.
5. To pick an emoji by hand, press Fn or Globe with E, or Control-Command-Space, search, and click it.

Say an emoji with Apple Dictation

Apple's list of Dictation commands ends with emoji: in some languages, you can say an emoji's name followed by the word emoji, such as heart emoji or car emoji, and Dictation types the emoji. It is free, built into macOS, and Apple says Dictation works anywhere you can type. Say the name, then the word emoji, and Dictation types the picture.

Step 1: Turn Dictation on and check the language

• You: Choose Apple menu, System Settings, then click Keyboard in the sidebar. Go to Dictation, turn it on, and click Enable. Then click Edit next to Languages and select the language and region you speak.
• macOS: Keeps Dictation on and shows the keys that start it in the Shortcut pop-up menu.
• Check: Your language is selected. Emoji by name works only in some languages, so this is the setting that decides whether the rest of this section works for you.

Step 2: Say the name and the word emoji

• You: Click where the emoji should go, press the Microphone key or your Dictation shortcut, and say your sentence with the emoji where it belongs.
• macOS: Types the emoji in place of the two words.
• Check: The emoji is in your text. If the words were typed instead, go to the fixes further down.

Say: While Apple Dictation is listening, in a language where emoji by name works.

see you tonight heart emoji

What happens: Dictation types the sentence and puts the heart emoji at the end.

Apple's guide gives heart and car as its examples and does not print a full list of emoji names, so for anything less common I would try it once before counting on it. Apple Dictation also stops after 30 seconds without speech, and the text below Dictation in Keyboard settings says whether your voice is processed on your Mac or sent to Siri servers. The Mac dictation commands guide has every other phrase Apple lists, from comma to copyright sign.

Say an emoji with YapToText

YapToText is the free Mac app I built for dictating into every app. It runs Whisper on your Mac, so what you say is heard on your Mac and nowhere else, and it needs no account. It needs an Apple silicon Mac with macOS 14 or later, and it is free on the Mac App Store. It ships 158 emoji with spoken names, almost all ending in the word emoji, and a few with shorter names: smiley face, thumbs up and thumbs down. In YapToText, say insert, then the emoji's name.

Step 1: Click where the emoji goes

• You: Click into the message box, document or note where the text should land.
• YapToText: Nothing yet. It types into the app in front, never into its own window.
• Check: The cursor is blinking where you want the words.

Step 2: Tap Right Command and talk

• You: Tap Right Command once and say your sentence, with insert and the emoji's name where the emoji belongs.
• YapToText: Opens the floating panel with your voice as a wave and your words as they form.
• Check: The wave moves when you speak. Emoji go in after any AI cleanup, as the text lands.

Step 3: Tap it again

• You: Tap Right Command again.
• YapToText: Finishes the transcript on your Mac, swaps the emoji in for insert and its name, and types the result at the cursor.
• Check: The emoji sits where you said it, and the words insert and emoji are gone.

A few examples, each said as part of one dictation:

Say: With Require the word insert before a command on, which is the default.

happy birthday insert party emoji

What happens: "Happy birthday" lands with the party emoji after it.

Say: A short reply that is only an emoji.

insert thumbs up

What happens: The thumbs up emoji lands on its own. Thumbs up is one of the few names without the word emoji.

Say: In the middle of a sentence.

the tests pass insert check mark emoji and the build is green insert rocket emoji

What happens: Both emoji land where you said them, in one dictation.

• Insert, every time. While Require the word insert before a command is on, every emoji needs insert in front, even the long names. Without it, the name is typed as words, so talking about a fire never turns into a picture of one.
• Every mode. Emoji work in every mode, Raw Transcription included.
• Safe from cleanup. Emoji and snippets go in after any AI cleanup, so a rewrite cannot drop or move them.
• Whole words only. Matching is whole words and ignores case, so a name hidden inside a longer word never fires.

The rest of YapToText's spoken commands, punctuation and snippets, work the same way, and the spoken punctuation and emoji guide covers them all. If you are new to the app, the first dictation guide starts from the key.

Find every emoji name on the Commands page

All 158 names live on YapToText's Commands page, which has three tabs, Snippets, Punctuation and Emoji, and a search field. The Emoji tab is the full list, and every row on it can be changed.

Step 1: Open the Emoji tab

• You: Open YapToText's Commands page and click the Emoji tab. To find one, type part of its name, such as heart, in the search field.
• YapToText: Lists each emoji as a row: the phrases you say, separated by commas, the emoji it inserts, and an On switch.
• Check: The row you want is there and its On switch is on.

Step 2: Name it the way you talk

• You: Click into a row's phrases and add your own after a comma. To add an emoji that is not on the list, press the Add button under the list, type your phrase under Say this and put the emoji under Inserts.
• YapToText: Saves it as you type. Longer phrases are matched first, so a long name is never cut short by a shorter one inside it.
• Check: Dictate insert and your new phrase. The emoji appears.

To get an emoji into the Inserts box without typing, click into the box and use the Emoji & Symbols viewer described further down, which adds the character you click to the text field you are in. A few more controls sit on the same page:

• Restore Defaults. Resets only the tab you are on, so it puts the Emoji tab back without touching your snippets.
• Export All and Import. Move the whole set as a file, to another Mac or to a backup.
• Enable voice commands. Turns every command off at once, emoji included.
• Require the word insert before a command. On by default. Off, every name fires bare, which also means an ordinary sentence with a name in it, like "I gave it a thumbs up", turns into an emoji.

Words that keep coming out misspelled, rather than emoji that will not fire, are a job for Dictionaries instead.

Smiley face: emoticon or emoji

Searches for how to dictate a smiley face on a Mac usually come from one surprise. Apple lists smiley face, frowny face, winky face and cross-eyed laughing face as commands, and they type text emoticons: :-), :-(, ;-) and XD. In YapToText, insert smiley face types the emoji. In Apple Dictation, smiley face is punctuation; in YapToText, it is an emoji.

Checked October 5, 2026, on Apple's own Dictation guides and YapToText's Commands page. Features change, so check before you rely on one.

I have not tested what Apple Dictation does with smiley face emoji, said with the word emoji at the end, and I would not guess. If you want the yellow face from Apple Dictation, that is the phrase to try first, and the Emoji & Symbols viewer is the sure way.

Pick one from the Emoji and Symbols viewer

Sometimes saying a name is slower than seeing the picture, and macOS has a viewer for that. Apple's guide says you can press Fn or the Globe key with E, or choose Edit, Emoji & Symbols, to open the Character Viewer, and Apple's list of keyboard shortcuts gives Control-Command-Space bar for the same viewer. Fn-E or Control-Command-Space opens the emoji viewer.

Step 1: Open the viewer

• You: Click where the emoji should go, then press Fn or Globe with E, or Control Command Space.
• macOS: Opens the Character Viewer.
• Check: The viewer is open. If neither shortcut does anything, choose Edit, Emoji & Symbols from the app's menu bar.

Step 2: Search and click

• You: Type a word or phrase, such as laughing face, in the search field, then click the emoji you want.
• macOS: Adds it to your text. If the viewer is expanded, you double-click instead.
• Check: The emoji is at the cursor.

Apple has a quicker trick too: type a common word such as heart or thumbs up, then press Fn or Globe with E, and macOS offers emoji suggestions for it. I have not tested whether that picks up a word you just dictated rather than typed.

One setting is shared with Dictation. Under Keyboard in System Settings, the menu next to Press fn key to (or Press Globe key to) can be set to Show Emoji & Symbols, so one press of the key opens the viewer. The same menu is where Start Dictation goes if you start Apple Dictation by pressing Fn twice, so it is one or the other; the Mac dictation shortcut guide covers that clash. YapToText starts from Right Command by default, so it leaves Fn alone. You can pick Fn (Globe) as its dictation key, but I have not tested that together with Show Emoji & Symbols, so I would give each job its own key.

If an emoji name types as words

An emoji that comes out as "heart emoji" in plain letters is almost always one of a handful of things. Check the exact words first, because both tools match the name, not the meaning. For Apple Dictation, climb this ladder, smallest step first:

1. Say the word emoji. Apple's rule is the name followed by the word emoji, so say heart emoji, not heart.
2. Check your language. Emoji by name works only in some languages, and Dictation's features vary by language and region. In Keyboard settings, under Dictation, click Edit next to Languages to see which one you are dictating in. The Mac dictation languages guide has more.
3. Expect emoticons from the face commands. smiley face, frowny face and winky face type :-), :-( and ;-) by design.
4. Check for Voice Control. When Voice Control is on, standard Dictation is not available, and you dictate through Voice Control with its own command list. Say Show commands to see it, and the Voice Control versus Dictation guide explains the difference.

If Dictation does not start at all, the Mac dictation not working guide starts from the beginning.

If a YapToText emoji types as words

Another ladder, smallest step first:

1. Add insert. While Require the word insert before a command is on, every emoji name needs insert in front, even long ones.
2. Say the name on the row. Search the Emoji tab for the emoji and say one of the phrases listed there. If you naturally say it another way, add your way as another phrase on the row.
3. Check the switches. On the Commands page, Enable voice commands must be on, and so must the row's On switch.
4. Read what Whisper heard. In History, open the dictation and click Show pipeline details: the raw transcript shows the words the speech model wrote. If it wrote the name differently, add that spelling as another phrase on the row.
5. If nothing is typed at all. That is a delivery problem, not an emoji one: on the Home page, press Grant next to Accessibility, and on the Dictation page, check Insert text automatically in the Delivery card. The troubleshooting guide goes further.
6. Tell me. Open a GitHub issue with the exact words you said and what was typed.

What each one cannot do

• Apple Dictation. Emoji by name works only in some languages, Apple's guide gives examples rather than a list of names, and its face commands type text emoticons. It stops after 30 seconds of silence, it is not available while Voice Control is on, and whether your voice leaves the Mac depends on what Keyboard settings says.
• YapToText. It types the emoji on its Emoji tab, 158 out of the box plus any you add, and nothing it has no row for. Its spoken commands are punctuation, emoji and snippets, so it cannot open the Emoji & Symbols viewer or pick a skin tone by voice; I have not tested skin tones in the Inserts box. It needs an Apple silicon Mac with macOS 14 or later, and nothing is claimed for Intel Macs.
• The Emoji & Symbols viewer. It is not voice at all: you open it with keys or a menu and click the emoji, which is fine for a keyboard user and slow for hands like mine.

Say the emoji you use every day, and keep the viewer for the rare ones. In chat apps the same commands apply, and the guides to voice to text in Messages and voice to text in Discord show them in a real conversation.

The short version

• Apple Dictation. Say the name and the word emoji, such as heart emoji, in a language that supports it.
• YapToText. Say insert and the name, such as insert party emoji; all 158 are on the Commands page, Emoji tab.
• Smiley face. Apple types :-), YapToText types the emoji.
• By hand. Fn-E or Control-Command-Space opens Emoji & Symbols.

Say the name where the emoji goes, and add insert in YapToText.

If an emoji name does not fire the way this page says, or you want one added to the default list, open an issue on GitHub. Every one gets read.

Download for free. No account, nothing locked, macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon. Source on GitHub.

About the author. Ryleigh Newman is a developer whose hands make typing difficult and who dictates every day with YapToText, the app this site describes. Facts about other apps come from their own sites, with the date they were read. More about the project.

Related

• Spoken punctuation in YapToText: what to say for each mark
• Mac dictation commands: Apple's full list, and how to delete
• Voice to text in Messages on a Mac: dictate a text, or send it as audio
• The Mac dictation shortcut, and how to change it
• Voice to text in Discord on a Mac: dictate messages in any server or DM
• WhatsApp voice to text on a Mac: dictate messages in WhatsApp and Telegram

Sources

• https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/commands-for-dictating-text-on-mac-mh40695/mac (checked 2026-10-03)
• https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-dictation-mh40584/mac (checked 2026-10-03)
• https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-emoji-and-symbols-on-mac-mchlp1560/mac (checked 2026-10-05)
• https://support.apple.com/en-us/102650 (checked 2026-10-03)
• https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/keyboard-settings-kbdm162/mac (checked 2026-10-03)
• https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-voice-control-commands-mh40719/mac (checked 2026-10-03)
• https://apps.apple.com/us/app/yaptotext/id6786382289 (checked 2026-10-03)

Questions