Enabling the Emoji Keyboard in iOS

1. Understand what emoji is.

Emoji originated in Japan and is a set of pictographs such as smileys. The emoji keyboard offers a wide variety of icons that can be read by any device that supports the emoji character set.

All Apple devices with iOS 5 or later support Emoji.

Google Hangouts for iOS also supports Emoji.

2. Check to see if the emoji keyboard is turned on.

Open any app that uses a keyboard (e.g., text messaging) and tap the text bar to activate the keyboard. At the bottom left-hand side of the keyboard, next to the numbers and symbols icon, look for either a smiley icon or a globe icon.

If you see a smiley icon, this means that the emoji keyboard has already been turned on.

If you see a globe icon, press and hold the icon to see a list of activated keyboards. “Emoji” will appear on this list if it has already been turned on.

If you don’t see either icon, this means that your iPhone only has one default keyboard set. You will need to add the emoji keyboard.

3. Open your Settings.

The Settings app can be found on your device’s Home screen.

4. Scroll down and tap on “General” to open the General Settings menu.

This menu controls various general settings for your iPhone, such as date and time, language, and keyboards.

5. Scroll down and tap on “Keyboard” to open the keyboards menu.

This menu controls all keyboard-related settings for your iPhone.

6. Tap on “Keyboards” at the top of the keyboards menu.

This menu will list all keyboards currently activated for your iPhone, as well as the option to add more keyboards. Adding, removing, and changing keyboards is all done within this menu.

7. Tap “Add New Keyboard…” at the bottom of the screen.

This menu contains every possible keyboard users can activate for their iPhones. 

8. Scroll down and select “Emoji” from the list of available keyboards.

“Emoji” will now appear on your list of activated keyboards.