How to Type Kaomoji Symbols in iPhone?

Apple adds the emoji keyboard by default in iOS and shows the smiley icon on the layout. You can tap on it and choose your favorite emoji from the huge list. But, what about inserting the text emoticons called kaomoji. These are similar to emoji symbol with a difference that it is a pure text based symbols by combining multiple Unicode characters. Here is how you can send kaomoji symbols to your friends in iPhone. Also learn how to type kaomoji in Windows.

Add Kaomoji Keyboard in iPhone

Unlike emoji symbols having a separate keyboard, you don’t have a dedicated keyboard layout for kaomoji symbols. However, these symbols are part of Chinese Pinyin keyboard layout. Therefore, you need to first add the Simplified Chinese keyboard layout to start sending kaomoji.

• Tap on “Settings” app and go to “General” section.
• Select “Keyboard” option to view all keyboard related settings.

• Again, tap on “Keyboards” to view currently installed keyboard layout on your iPhone.

• By default, you should see the “Chinese, Simplified – Pinyin” layout if you have purchased your iPhone from China Mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan or any other Chinese resellers.

• If you don’t see the Chinese keyboard layout, tap on “Add New Keyboard…” option.
• Scroll down in the alphabetical list or look at the suggested list to find “Chinese, Simplified” option and tap on it.

• You will see the list of Chinese keyboard layouts and select “Pinyin – 10 Key” layout.

• Tap on “Done” to add the layout to your list.

Remember, you should select “Chinese, Simplified” and not “Chinese, Traditional”. In addition, you should choose “10 Key” method for inserting kaomoji text emoticons.

Use Kaomoji Keyboard in iPhone

Now that you have added the required kaomoji keyboard layout, you can switch the layout and insert the kaomoji symbols whenever you want.

• Open an app like Messages, Notes or Reminders that has a default keyboard layout. Let us explain with Messages app here.
• Create a new message and tap on the input text box.
• Tap on the globe icon and choose the Pinyin – 10 Key layout. If you have multiple Chinese keyboards, it will appear in the same order as shown under the keyboard settings page.

• Now you can see the kaomoji key showing as ^_^ in the right middle of the keyboard.

• Tap on that key to see the huge list of kaomoji text emoticon symbols.
• You can either swipe left on the symbols to select the one you like to send. Alternatively, press the small down arrow at the right of the symbols will open all kaomoji symbols in larger view like emoji keyboard. Swipe up and find your favorite kaomoji symbol to send to your friends.

• In order to close the list, tap on the up arrow at the right of the symbols list.
• You can return back to default keyboard by pressing the globe icon and select the keyboard from the list.

As mentioned, kaomoji are combination of Unicode characters that you can’t type using regular keyboard. It means, you can delete each character in the kaomoji symbol. Unlike emoji symbol that can be deleted by pressing the delete key single time, you need to delete the kaomoji characters one by one.

Disable Kaomoji Keyboard

We don’t find any problem in keeping the Chinese keyboard layout and type kaomoji symbols. However, you can remove the keyboard layout any time later when don’t want to keep it in the list.

• As explained above, go to the “General > Keyboard” settings page.
• Tap on the “Keyboards” option to view all installed layouts.
• Swipe left on the Chinese Pinyin keyboard you want to delete.
• iPhone will show the “Delete” option and tap on it to delete the keyboard.