Manage your emoji preferences

In Slack, emoji are both fun and helpful for getting work done. To get the most out of emoji, you can adjust your default skin tone, display preferences, and one-click emoji reactions.


Choose your default skin tone

Desktop

Mobile

    1. Click the  smiley face icon in the message field to open the menu.
    2. Click the ✋ hand icon in the bottom right corner.

      Emoji menu showing skin tone selection option

    3. Choose a default skin tone.

Tip: You can click on certain emoji when they appear in the message field to quickly cycle through available skin tones. 

  1. Tap your profile picture.
  2. Tap  Preferences.
  3. Tap  Advanced.
  4. Tap Default Emoji Skin Tone, then choose your preferred skin tone.


Set your emoji display preferences

There are a few preferences for managing how emoji display in Slack:

  • Display emoji as Unicode or plain text
  • Choose to make emoji larger in messages without text
  • Convert typed emoticons to emoji
  1. From your desktop, click your profile picture in the sidebar.
    Static image of a cursor clicking the profile picture menu in the Slack app
  2. Select Preferences from the menu.
  3. Select Messages & media.
  4. Under Emoji, check or uncheck the boxes to set your preferences.

Note: Slack displays emoji in Apple's style on Mac and iOS devices, and Google's style on Windows, Linux, and Android devices.


Set your preference for one-click emoji reactions

One-click emoji reactions let you respond to messages in Slack almost instantly — simply hover over a message and choose from three emoji options. Owners and admins can choose default one-click reactions you see, but you can customize them using the steps below.

  1. From your desktop, click your profile picture in the sidebar.
    Static image of a cursor clicking the profile picture menu in the Slack app
  2. Select Preferences.
  3. Select Messages & media.
  4. Under Emoji, check or uncheck the box next to Show one-click reactions on messages. If checked, click the boxes to select three emoji.