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To open an emoji panel, in Windows, I can press the Win key and period.

On Mac, I can open an emoji panel via Control + Command + Spacebar.

What is a convenient way to open a similar emoji panel in Ubuntu? I don't want the Characters app, which is much less convenient than a single-click emoji picker.

Ryan
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3 Answers3

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In apps developed using GTK, you can press Ctrl + . to trigger an emoji picker, no extra software required.

jobukkit
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    With the notable exception of Chromium, for which I have yet to find a good solution. Sadly, that's also the application an emoji picker would be the most useful for. – marcelm Aug 14 '23 at 11:39
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    @marcelm See my other answer regarding emoji in browsers https://askubuntu.com/a/1317180/134848 – jobukkit Aug 14 '23 at 12:07
  • Not sure about Chromium but it works fine in chrome and firefox – Tejas Kale Aug 14 '23 at 16:38
  • @TejasKale Chrome and Chromium are the same software, the difference is that the former is distributed by Google and the latter is distributed by your Linux distro. – jobukkit Aug 14 '23 at 17:35
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    Doesn't seem to work in Google-Chrome or VScode (which is Chromium based)... at least for me on 23.10.. seems to work in a lot of in-built Ubuntu programs though... – Ben Winding Mar 07 '24 at 03:00
3

If you prefer flatpak I've been using Smile for a few months and it works great. Emote is also available, but I think Smile has more features.

smile

Setting up a shortcut is similar to Ryan's answer, but you use flatpak run it.mijorus.smile in step 6

GammaGames
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2

In 2024, this Cross-Platform Emoji Picker is available for free.

screenshot of Cross-Platform Emoji Picker

It works on Ubuntu and also on Windows and Mac, using the same keyboard shortcut.

P.S. Full disclosure: I created this app using Electron. This is not meant to be a spammy, self-promoting post. But I was the original question-asker 5 months ago, and I finally built this tool for myself because the others weren't good. Feel free to use it if you want.

Ryan
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  • Thanks a lot for working on this tool. Could you explain what are the advantages of this app in comparison to the many already existing emoji apps (e.g. like the Emoji Picker which comes out of the box since Ubuntu 18.04) mentioned in the this emoji picker answer for a Linux only user? Could you make the app open-source and publish it on a platform like Gitlab/-hub? This may help to trust the code as it would not be just an AppImage and people could help you with bug reports & code suggestions. – Filbuntu Jan 16 '24 at 19:51
  • @Filbuntu The main advantages: unlike the Ubuntu built-in emoji picker, this one feels much easier for me to use. And it works the same way regardless of which app you want to put the emoji into. And it works the same on Windows and Mac, so if you switch computers a lot, you're reducing the number of habits and hotkeys that you need to remember. In the future, it might even have further advantages, such as synching favs and history and creating custom groupings, etc. – Ryan Jan 16 '24 at 20:32
  • Looks really good! just curious if it's open-source? – Ben Winding Mar 07 '24 at 02:56
  • @BenWinding Thanks! Nope, private repo. – Ryan Mar 07 '24 at 14:13