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If you like emoji, it’s easy to find and insert them into apps like Discord, Messages, and Slack, as well as many websites, especially social networks like Facebook and Twitter, that have commissioned emoji designs unique to their products. But beyond apps and sites that contain emoji, macOS offers a convoluted process for accessing them otherwise.
The missile blasts its way into this gap. This simple utility provides the same ease as Slack by typing the colon, part of the emoji’s name, and hitting the completion key (like “Return”) to paste it. For example, type :rocket and press the Enter key and 🚀 will appear. You can change the trigger key from a colon, or require you to type the trigger twice to bring up the emoji picker.
The free version of the app matches names with an option in settings to enable fuzzy search. It uses common emoji names for matching, or the app matches names with an option in settings to enable fuzzy search.
App developer Matthew Palmer also includes boosters – select this option from the Rocket system menu – that he planned to include in the Pro package even before the pandemic. Its bounty in free giving gives you access to emoji (text characters before emoji), certain Unicode characters and tags (such as dingbats and elements used in mathematics), and what Rocket labels as Deeper Emoji. Keywords: 10,000 additional keywords to help match.
Rocket even lets you choose emoji for the blind, thanks to a combination of Apple’s accessibility features and your own preferences. You can say the name of the emoji, copy the selected one to the clipboard, and override VoiceOver when using Rocket if needed.
You can add apps and websites to exclusion lists to avoid conflicts with already available extension shortcuts or emoji systems.
The free version of Rocket gives you access to typing-based emoji selection and insertion, including setting the default skin tone. Upgrade to Pro for $10 and you unlock the emoji browser, but also add the ability to embed GIFs (including 150 pre-made ones), create usage statistics, and set custom emoji extension names. It also adds general text expansion, bringing it closer to something like TextExpander or Typinator.
If emojis make you happy and are part of your language, stop tediously using macOS Symbol View to find them. Install at least the free version of Rocket and make it easy to express yourself.
With the Mac renaissance in recent years, we want to highlight the tools we use and which readers recommend to get the most out of macOS. Mac Gems highlights great Mac software nuggets, applications that are highly useful, focus on a limited set of problems to solve, and are usually developed by an individual or a small company. Stay tuned for weekly updates and submit your suggestions to the Mac Gems Twitter feed (@mcgems).