One of many frustrations of organising a brand new laptop is downloading, putting in, and logging into all the varied functions I take advantage of every single day. However every time I arrange a brand new Mac, I’m joyful to obtain and set up Rocket—the primary app I set up on any new Mac. In reality, it’s one of many utilities I miss most when I’ve to make use of a Home windows PC.
Rocket is a easy, free utility from Matthew Palmer that provides Slack-style emoji typing all through your system. That’s it, that’s all it does.
In the event you spend all day on Slack like I do, you understand how quick and simple it’s so as to add emojis. Kind a colon (:) adopted instantly by a search time period, and a little bit pop-up emoji picker reveals related emojis. You may decide one from the record (with the mouse or arrow keys) or hold typing to slender it down and simply press Enter.

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It makes utilizing emoji, which I take advantage of loads, an intuitive a part of the typing course of as an alternative of a separate exercise. Rocket merely makes that very same emoji typing expertise accessible system-wide. There are just a few welcome choices, akin to the flexibility to disable Rocket when utilizing sure apps by which it interferes, or when on sure web sites. You may select a customized pores and skin one for related emojis, too.
There’s a $10 Rocket Professional improve that provides the flexibility to construct a library of customized GIFs or photos you could summon the identical means, together with some stats and textual content expander snippets. I’m joyful to pay, however I by no means use any of these options.
If I needed to make a request, it could be to permit for a easy means to have a look at emoji variants within the picker. Many emojis as of late have a number of variations, and it could be nice to search out one with just a few faucets of the keyboard. The popular default pores and skin tone choice handles a few of them, however you don’t at all times wish to change up an entire default simply to get the precise variant of 1 or two emojis. And never each emoji variation is a pores and skin tone.
However hey, it’s free, it’s light-weight, it’s stored updated, and it makes my Mac extra pleasurable to make use of. It’s laborious to complain about that.