The cross-platform Emoji picker (emoji-list) in Emacs is nice. But if you’re on macOS running the NS variant of Emacs, you can use the macOS-native picker which is better (😍). The command to raise this picker is ns-do-show-character-palette.

Unfortunately, this command is not configured to be in the main menu by default. The following Elisp initialization code will rectify that, placing the menu item “Emoji & Symbols” at the bottom of the Edit menu from the main menu. The :visible slot ensures that this will only take effect on NS Emacs.

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(easy-menu-add-item global-map '(menu-bar edit)
                    ["Emoji & Symbols"
                     ns-do-show-character-palette
                     :help "Show macOS Character Palette."
                     :visible (eq window-system 'ns)])

Note that users of the Mitsuharu Yamamoto fork of Emacs (aka Emacs Mac App) don’t have to do this as this behavior is already there. It used to be my daily driver but I switched over to the NS variant with the 29.4 release some time ago because the latter was actively maintained. I suspect (sadly 😞) that the Yamamoto fork is being left to bit-rot which is regrettable as that fork is the superior version when it comes to native macOS integration. With the upcoming Emacs 30 release, I think this will become even more pronounced. I'd be happy to be wrong on this though.

References

• Emacs macOS native emoji picker (revisited)

emacs