How to use Apple’s Genmoji to create new types of emoji

For decades, the choice of an emoji has been limited to what is available on the keyboard of your smartphone. Every year brings new emojis – I love the “face with bags under the eyes“Although that is still on the way. But there are times when the preinstalled options are not specific enough. Fortunately, Apple has a solution, and it’s called Genmoji.

With the help of Apple Intelligenceyou can generate custom emojis right from your keyboard using text suggestions or even a person’s photo from your Photo library. Below, find out all the steps to create your own Genmoji.

Check out our iOS 18 roundup for a complete list of all the top features of the latest Apple operating system. Be sure to also check out our other Apple guides, including the The best iPhones, The best accessories for the iPhone 16and The best iPads.

Enable Apple Intelligence

Before you begin, you’ll want to check if you have access to Apple Intelligence. It launched with iOS 18.1 and iPadOS 18.1, but Genmoji specifically launched in iOS 18.2. To check your software version, go to Settings > General > About. It’s good to go if it says iOS 18.2 or newer. If you need to update, first backup your device.

If you don’t have access to Genmoji, make sure Apple Intelligence is enabled (it should be by default). Go to Settings > Apple Intelligence & Siri and turn on Apple Intelligence. It should be noted that Apple Intelligence is only available on select iPhones– him iPhone 16 range, iPhone 15 Proand iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Screenshots courtesy of Brenda Stolyar via Apple Intelligence

Enter your Prompt

1. When you have a Messages window open, tap the emoji icon (the smiley face) or the keyboard icon (the globe) to access the emoji keyboard.
2. In the upper right corner of the keyboard, tap the button Genmoji icon (the pink and blue smiley with a plus sign).
3. Type a few words or a phrase in the text box that describes what you are looking for and tap Done.
4. Swipe through the populated genmojis and tap Add on the one you want to use. It will then appear in your emoji drawer and stickers.
5. You can also create Genmojis based on pictures of people in your Photos app. Start typing a prompt like “Julian is celebrating his birthday”, tap “Choose a person” from the list of contacts that appears, and select the specific person. From there, you’ll see various Genmojis populate based on the prompt. Tap Add when you find the one you want to use.

Fine tune your Genmoji

You can also tweak your original prompt to create new versions of your original Genmoji.

1. In the Genmoji window, tap the text box.
2. Write a refined version of your prompt or a completely new version. For example, instead of “dog in a birthday hat”, you can change it to “dog with a birthday cake”. Then it will automatically repopulate the new versions.