We love texting! And with the updates to iMessage in iOS in recent years, texting is, even more, fun and immersive. So when our predictive text or our iPhone emoji keyboard stop showing up or begin acting wonky, we need a quick fix–and we need it now!
If you’re looking for more general information about iMessage and Messages not working, check out this article.
And if you are finding that your Messages disappeared, check this more detailed article.
So let’s get to it!
Contents
- 1 Emoji Not Working? Video & Instructions Below.
- 2 Quick Tips
- 3 First, The Symptoms
- 4 Next, The Rules
- 5 Finally, The Cure(s)
- 6 Re-Boot Your Keyboard Settings
- 7 Reset Keyboard Dictionary
- 8 Has Your iPhone or iPad Learned Misspellings?
- 9 All About Your iPhone Emoji Keyboard
- 10 Ever Wonder What Your Sent Emoji Look Like on Android and other Phones (other than iPhone)?
- 11 Wrapping It Up!
Emoji Not Working? Video & Instructions Below.
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Quick Tips 
Follow These Quick Tips To Get Predictive Text And Emoji Working Again
- Turn Predictive Setting Off and then On again (and maybe other Keyboard Settings too)
- Reset your Keyboard’s Dictionary
- Check that Emoji is added as a keyboard
- Delete and reinstall Emoji keyboard
- Send an iMessage to yourself with a bunch of emojis to kickstart predictive emojis to work
First, The Symptoms
For some iFolks, after updating to the latest version of iOS, their predictive text and type correct functions for both Messages and Mail suddenly disappear.
For others, their iPhones and iPads are frequently showing misspellings. Or spell check doesn’t appear to work anymore
Some of our readers are not seeing the predictive text emojis popping up when typing words commonly associated with emoji (words like heart, cat, car–things we know have correlating emoji.)
Next, The Rules
For iFolks loving emoji, be aware that predictive emoji are only available in Messages. This feature is not currently available for other apps, including notes, mail, and others.
Make sure you type your message out first and then tap the emoji keyboard.
Emoji replaceable words appear in orange, just tap to replace a word with an emoji!
Also, emoji replacement doesn’t work if you use dictation to type a text. When using diction, you manually type it to be offered emoji replacement suggestions.
Finally, The Cure(s)
Many of our iPhone and iDevice ails are easily solved by disabling and then re-enabling predictive text settings and other keyboard settings.
Re-Boot Your Keyboard Settings
- Go to Settings
- Select General
- Scroll Down and Choose Keyboard
- Slide These Settings OFF
- Auto-Capitalization
- Auto-Correction
- Check Spelling
- Shortcuts
- Predictive
- Wait a few moments
- Now, slide these Setting back ON
- Auto-Capitalization
- Auto-Correction
- Check Spelling
- Shortcuts
- Predictive
Return to Messages or Mail and see if your predictive text is working as expected.
If your problem was spell checker or auto-correction, verify these are working by intentionally misspelling words. See if your iPhone corrects these.
Reset Keyboard Dictionary
One of the easiest ways to control your iPhone’s or other iDevice’s learned misspellings is to reset your keyboard’s dictionary.
To reset your dictionary
- Go to Settings
- Select General
- Head to Reset
- Choose Reset Keyboard Dictionary
Be aware that when resetting your keyboard you are removing any words you’ve added to your iDevice’s user dictionary.
When using your iPhone normally, you add words to the keyboard dictionary by rejecting words your iDevice suggests as you type.
Over time, your iDevice potentially accumulates a lot of words, including any words you frequently misspell. When you tap a word to reject your iPhone’s auto-correction, you add your word to your user dictionary.
So Resetting the keyboard dictionary erases all words you’ve added–the ones you want as well as the ones you don’t.
Has Your iPhone or iPad Learned Misspellings?
If your iPhone or other iDevice learned just a few of your frequently misspelled words, there is a quick way to get your iPhone to “forget” these.
- Go to Settings
- Select General
- Tap Keyboard
- Choose Text Replacement
- Tap the “+” sign
- Add the misspelled word in the phrase field
- Add the correctly spelled word in the shortcut field
Text Replacement
This feature is also a great timesaver.
Create shortcuts for common phrases you frequently use.
Once created, the shortcut automatically expands into the word or phrase you type. Pretty useful!
To create shortcuts for common phrases
- Go to Settings
- Select General
- Tap Keyboard
- Choose Text Replacement
- Tap the “+” sign
- Add your phrase or word in the phrase field
- Add your easy type alternative in the shortcut field
- no spaces allowed, it must be a constant chain of characters
For example, I created the shortcut “2t” for my favorite phrase “let’s get to it!”
All About Your iPhone Emoji Keyboard
If your iPhone emoji keyboard isn’t showing up for you or popping up on words associated with emoji, check that you have an emoji keyboard installed.
Add Your iPhone Emoji Keyboard
- Go to Settings
- Select General
- Choose Keyboard
- Scroll Up and select Keyboards
- Verify that Emoji is listed as a keyboard
- If not, select Add New Keyboard and choose Emoji
- Return to Settings > General > Keyboard
- Verify that Predictive is toggled ON
- If not, toggle Predictive ON
Your iPhone and iDevices need to have the Emoji keyboard downloaded in your Keyboards list to provide emoji options. Check and see if emoji are showing up in Messages now.
Test if your iPhone emoji keyboard is now working
- Open Messages
- Tap on the person you want to text
- Type a message as normal but don’t hit the send arrow
- Long-tap on the Globe icon or smiley face icon to bring up your list of installed keyboards, and choose Emoji
- Tap any orange-highlighted word directly in your text message to turn it into an emoji
- If no highlighted words appear, there aren’t any potential emoji replacement opportunities in your message
- Tap the send arrow when you’re finished
Be aware that some emojis have multiple potential keywords.
For these, a pop-up box appears to choose the particular emoji you want to use.
For example, the word “happy” has multiple options, so just choose the emoji that best represents you!
If emoji still aren’t showing up
- Go to Settings
- Select General
- Choose Keyboard
- Scroll Up and select Keyboards
- If the Emoji Keyboard is listed, choose Edit in Right Upper Corner
- Delete the Emoji Keyboard
- Restart your iPhone or iDevice
- Hold both the Sleep/Wake and Home buttons for 10 seconds until you see the Apple logo
- Return to Settings > General > Keyboard > Keyboards
- Select Add New Keyboard and choose Emoji
If your iPhone emoji keyboard continues not to show up
Okay, here’s a weird fix but our readers report it works. In Messages, switch to your emoji keyboard and send tons of emojis to yourself in a few messages.
Then switch back to the English keyboard, and the predictive text starts working! Don’t know why this works but it does–go figure. If you have any insight, please let us know in the comments. Thanks!
Quick Emoji keyboard tip
A simple way to get to the predictive slider is to press and long hold the smiley icon or the globe icon near the spacebar. A quick menu appears with options for turning Shortcuts and Predictive ON and OFF.
It’s also the easiest way to switch between multiple keyboards, such as English and Emoji. To turn Predictive or Shortcuts ON or OFF, just toggle it off and on and see if that corrects your problem(s.)
Ever Wonder What Your Sent Emoji Look Like on Android and other Phones (other than iPhone)?
We live in a texting world–nearly everyone these days does some amount of texting from young to old. We also live in a multi-platform world, where iPhones, Androids, Windows, and some rare other phones are texting back in forth at lightning speed.
If you’ve ever texted someone close by with a different type of phone (say your iPhone to their Samsung Android), have you noticed that that the emoji they received don’t exactly look like the emoji you sent?
Emoji look a little different depending on the device, the manufacturer, and of course the operating system.
Go ahead and test it out, send some emoji to a friend or family member with a different brand of phone or operating system. And take a look. What difference do you see between the emoji sent and the emoji received?
Emoji are Variable (somewhat)
So how do you know if the emoji you send will look the same or entirely different to your text recipients?
There is no one answer. It all depends on what device and messaging platform the recipient is using and what emoji font(s) are used on their phones.
But don’t worry, emoji variations are usually quite small–more like interpretations than straight out different. So it’s unlikely that your emoji look entirely different to your Samsung friends. Rather, your emoji look slightly different.
Believe it or not, there’s an organization that standardizes emoji. It’s called the Unicode Consortium and is a nonprofit in Mountain View, California.
This group approves all emojis, including any new emoji. And they mandate that for any new emoji, its designers must maintain the same emoji core shape across platforms.
What that means for us is that messaging apps and smartphone manufacturers have some flexibility in the shaping of emoji. But the core content and shape must be the same across all types of devices and brands.
The Difference is Good and Fun!
It’s fun comparing emoji “notes” with your friends and family and noticing the differences!
You can even make a game out of it, scoring points for who observes the variations for a particular emoji on an iPhone versus a Galaxy. And this isn’t limited to phone manufacturers.
Twitter, Mozilla, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram all have their own emoji language fonts.
Major Emoji Font Makers
- Apple emoji as used on iOS, macOS, and the iMessage app. WhatsApp also uses Apple’s emoji font
- Google for Android interfaces, Google Messages app, Google Hangouts, and Gmail
- Emoji One used for web apps like the Slack, Campfire, and other group chats
- Samsung for devices that include Samsung’s TouchWiz skin
- Facebook for Facebook and Facebook Messages.
- LG used on all LG devices
- Microsoft for Windows, Microsoft Surface, and Windows Phones
Check out Emojipedia to see the differences.
We were admittedly surprised at some of these variations!
The Unicode Consortium also has a bunch of Emoji charts that illustrate the various features of different manufacturers emoji characters in Unicode.
Even look at and learn about the newest emojis coming out in the next months with their emoji candidates charts. See what’s in the emoji pipeline! Who knew such hard work went into developing and maintaining emoji?
Wrapping It Up!
Texting in iOS 10+ is so much better than earlier iOS generations.
Our iPhones and other iDevices are catching up with the rest of the world and creating a genuinely immersive Messaging experience, full of animations, emoji, photos, and even special effects.
So it stinks when our iPhone emoji keyboard doesn’t show up, when our texts are full of spelling mistakes, or when our predictive texts aren’t working.
Hopefully, these tips get you back on track. Just remember that with all these rich texting features, we pay the price in the data our Messages now take up on our phone. Check out this article to make sure you are managing your Messages.
For most of her professional life, Amanda Elizabeth (Liz for short) trained all sorts of folks on how to use media as a tool to tell their own unique stories. She knows a thing or two about teaching others and creating how-to guides!
Her clients include Edutopia, Scribe Video Center, Third Path Institute, Bracket, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Big Picture Alliance.
Elizabeth received her Master of Fine Arts degree in media making from Temple University, where she also taught undergrads as an adjunct faculty member in their department of Film and Media Arts.
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It’s really weird…
I have tried all the option its doesn’t work, then I tried to send all emoji to myself and its working…
I could not get it to predict emojis next to the words above the keyboard. Deleted the emoji keyboard, restarted phone, etc. I then sent myself a text with a bunch of different emojis and now it works! Weird fix, but can confirm it works!
yep. very, very annoying.
The trick of sending an emoji-filled text to myself worked for me, too! Thanks!
ok, I have tried everything suggested to get the emoji keyboard back, but it is not even showing as a keyboard to add. Now what?
In the on-screen keyboard, press the globe or smiley face icon and hold down for a second or two (depending on the iPhone model, these icons might appear inside the keyboard or just below it). Wait for an on-screen pop-up menu to appear with all your keyboard options including emoji
Lol, thank you so much!! The bizarre suggestion to send myself a bunch of emoji was what actually helped the “predictive emoji” feature to start working! Thank you
Thank you for the tips on fixing the issue with auto correct. It was driving me crazy. After scrolling through page after page, I finally found yours and it made the most sense. I tried turning off the features you suggested, waiting & then switching them back on. Worked like a charm. Thank you so much.
Since the 13.1.2 update my keyboard is just adding random words. I will be done with a word , hit the space bar and before I hit another letter “NBC”, “BBC”, “bc” and BBC a few other random items. I have erased my phone and it came back. I have reset the keyboards. I have deleted keyboards. Tried everything. Has anyone else had this? It is driving me crazy.
Thank you.
Emojis were not showing up on my new iPhone 11. Tried all of the things above -nothing worked until I tried the send a bunch of emojis to yourself option – and BAM – now it works. THANK YOU. 🙂
I tried all of the fixes and none of them work until I just typed in all of the emojis and text it to myself which is one of the last suggestions and then at worked!
It Worked!!! Thank You sooo so much. Sending the emojis to myself worked!! LoL
Go figure…who knew… you are a gem!
Thanks so much.
Sending an iMessage to myself (didn’t know I could do that) seems to have fixed the problem of predictive emojis not appearing. Thanks!
The text yourself a bunch or emojis worked to get emojis back in my predictive text. Thanks for the tip. It was driving me crazy.
THIS ACTUALLY WORKED ON MY XR THANKS DO MUCH
“If your iPhone emoji keyboard continues not to show up
Okay, here’s a weird fix but our readers report it works. In Messages, switch to your emoji keyboard and send tons of emojis to yourself in a few messages.”
Can I thank you
I bought a new Xs and the predictive emoji would not work doing all the resets and things……so I tried sending loads of emojis in a text to myself and then it worked……. weird fix but it worked…… thank you thanks
The emoji’s still don’t come up on my text message keyboard, I tried the tricks you talked about and still no luck.
I restored my phone twice and still no luck, Apple told me I might need to take my phone in and get it to replace or when I downloaded the updated software 12.1.4 is might have messed with my settings.
I don’t know anymore I’m done dealing with it I hope there’s a fix for it soon.
Hi Daniel,
We have some tips also at this article for iOS iMessage problems specifically.
If you are talking specifically about the new emojis–those emojis are being released with iOS 12.2.
We also suggest updating via iTunes vs. Over-The-Air using Settings > About > Software Update since iTunes installs a full and fresh version of iOS, not just the parts that changed.
Update iTunes first, back up your device and then update (if an update is available)
Check your network connections, toggle WiFi Off and On to force a refresh to your network and then restart your device
Since you tried all the usual tricks, it is time to set-up an appointment with Apple and have them take a look at your device.
Keep us posted on this issue, if you can
Liz
So I got it to work, I ran into a site that had some people with the same problem and what Apple had told them to do is go into your messages and go to your emojis and select a bunch of different emojis all in one text, doesn’t matter which ones you select.
Once you do that don’t send them just yet erase them all and do that something again select bunch of emojis doesn’t have to be the same ones and this time send them, I sent them to myself and once you send them type the word apple and it should show up on the text message keyboard.
it worked for me thanks for your help
Thank you very much, Daniel! I have tried just about everything but nothing works. It works only after trying the trick you suggested! Thanks, again!
Sending a whole heap of emojis to myself also worked for me, before that they were not working when I typed
The fix for emojis not showing up when typing was listed here, thanks!
Fix was to send yourself a ton of random emojis and it magically started working.
Dude it worked!! The emojis wouldn’t show up whenever I typed then I did the (text yourself thing) and it worked right away!!! Thanks !! That’s awesome!
Sending loads of emojis to myself worked !
Hi yes can you plz help me so when I go on the Emoji icon it goes all black again nd gets me off whatever app I was on and I don’t know what to do plz help me
Hi Johana,
Please try a forced restart by pressing the home button and the power button at the same time. Keep holding these two buttons until you see the Apple logo on screen, then release.
Then try emojis again.
If problems persist, let us know.
Liz
”Okay, here’s a weird fix but our readers report it works. In Messages, switch to your emoji keyboard and send tons of emojis to yourself in a few messages. Then switch back to the English keyboard, and the predictive text starts working! Don’t know why this works but it does–go figure. If you have any insight, please let us know in the comments. Thanks!”
THIS SOLUTION WORKS!!! did all of them but nothing. THAT did! Thanks!!!
Crazy it worked! Thanks
I couldn’t get emojis to work so I sent myself a string of emojis and the predictive emoji function came right back on! Thank you.
Hi Grace,
That’s awesome. Thanks for letting us know this particular tip worked for you!
SK
This helped me get my emoji working. Thank you!
Thanks! This is really great and useful information. I have followed and tried from the first recipe guidance stated here until the end except type yourself a bunch of emoji icon, and until i read all comments, again one of the comments saying type yourself a bunch of emoji and i have tried. It finally okay.
So I’ve tried many thing but my PT still won’t turn on when I’m using google or safari. It’s on for texting. When I hold down the emoji, the predictive button is greyed out. This just started today. I also have no way to pull up the section with the tab about the “t”.
Any one know how to help??
The new emojis are not showing up for me. When my sister sends an iMessage some emojis are coming up as a question mark. I have the latest update and have reset my keyboards but still nothing
hi Tonisha,
Sorry to learn about your problems with emojis! First thing is to verify that both your and your sister are on the latest iOS update of 10.1.1. If you both are running that, try deleting your emoji keyboard and then re-installing it. Go to Settings>General>Keyboard>Keyboards and select Edit in top right. Tap the red button and choose Delete. Now restart your iDevice by press power and sliding off. After restart, go back to Settings>General>Keyboard>Keyboards and add emoji keyboard back.
I hope this tips work for you!
Good Luck,
Liz
Thanks for the help Elizabeth. I tried your suggestions & various combinations of them without any luck. I think I’ll just have to accept that the blue highlight is a warning of a spelling mistake & I’ll use other means to correct it.
Or I might go with the majority & not give a toss about my spelling.
I can’t seem to get one commonly used feature to work on my iPhone 6S since upgrading to IOS10.
When I type a message, a misspelled word is still highlighted with an red underline but where as before I could tap the word & be shown alternative spellings, now the word just gets a blue highlight & nothing else.
I’ve tried restarts, reboots, resets, upgrade to IOS 10.1, delete & reinstall, all the relevant fixes listed above, but still no joy. I want to use the English (Australian) keyboard or even the English (UK) keyboard would be close enough. Oddly enough, if I use the English (US) spelling the function works, but since the US dictionary has so many misspelled words, this is useless to me.
It’s a small glitch but very annoying when I’ve grown accustomed to using it.
Hi Robert,
Sorry to learn about your iMessage woes. You might have already tried this one but I’m not sure based on your comment. So here it goes: First go to General>Keyboards and toggle ALL of the options OFF (from auto-caps through shortcut). Then delete all your keyboards (including emoji) except the default English (US). Then double click home and close all open apps and settings. After all apps are closed, perform a hard restart by pressing power and home until apple logo appears. After iPhone resets and you enter passcode, return to General>Keyboards and slide all the options you want back ON (from auto-caps through shortcut). After that, go ahead and add back your desired keyboards including emoji. Once keyboards are added, shut down the iPhone via power button and slide to power off. Wait a few moments (20-30 seconds) and then power back on. After entering passcode, check and see if iMessage works as you expect by intentionally misspelling words.
Hope this works for you. Let us know if you are still having troubles or if you found a different solution. And we’ll continue looking into things from our end–staff and readers too!
Hope spelling works for you!
Elizabeth
UNBELIEVABLE…after spending FAR too much time trying every rational way known to mankind, I tried your last trick of typing in a whole bunch of emojis and sure enough….it worked!!! You are brilliant…thank you!
Tried everything to get predictive emojis to work on my iPad, and nothing. Then I came across this article and tried the crazy “Text yourself a bunch of emojis”–and wouldn’t you know it, it finally started working!
Strange solution, for sure, but whatever works, right? 🙂
None of these solutions worked for me. But I was able to get it working. Try typing a bunch of random emojis into a text. Hit return to begin a new line, and type a word that you would expect predictive emojis for. Then it started working for me.
Was running into the issue of emojis not auto correcting as I type. Tried the fix of just typing a bunch of emojis to myself and worked immediately. Extremely strange. Unfortunately my dictionary with 3 years of knowing my typing patterns is gone! Small price I suppose.
When I text landscape / length wise my phone now capitalizes each word and puts it on a new line! So frustrating. I hate this new format – what can I do? I’ve tried to re-set all as recommended above, but no difference.
Colleen,
I assume you’ve already tried this one, as mentioned in article, but just in case cause it’s always better to start with the simplest fixes first : Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings and test again.
Some iFolks have tried the following with success: Open Settings> Privacy>Location Services and scroll down to System Services. Turn Compass Calibration OFF. Now Open Settings>Compass and Turn Use True North OFF. Reboot the phone. Open Settings>Compass and Turn Use True North ON. Follow this with Open Settings> Privacy>Location Services and scroll down to System Services. Turn Compass Calibration ON. And then open Settings>Privacy>Location Services>Compass and set to “While Using the App.” Now open the compass app (default folder is Extras) and swipe to the right and then back to the left. Finally open Messages and see if this worked for you.
A couple of other suggestions from readers if that doesn’t work:
1) Turn off Reduce Motion in Settings/General/Accessibility/Reduce Motion then Reboot
2) Turn off Reachability in Settings/General/Accessibility/Reachability then Reboot
3) Turn off Zoom in Settings/General/Accessibility/Zoom then Reboot
4) Turn off Raise to Listen in Settings>Message>Raise to Listen then…guess what, yup Reboot
I hope one of these suggestions works for you. Keep us posted.
I’m having no luck disabling the predictive prompts in my calendar events and location (don’t want or need). Will try keyboard reset no again.
Weil I tried the fix to get emoji’s on my phone messages by sending myself a bunch just like you said (see quick emoji keyboard tip) and it WORKED!!! I went to 4 Verizon stores and they had no clue. Thank you so much.