Emoji Picker

The emoji picker flyout gives you instant access to your most-used emojis when creating new memos. Long-press the create button to open it, then tap any emoji to create a memo immediately. Two filter toggles let you customize which emojis appear.

Opening the Emoji Picker

To open the quick emoji picker:

Find the + button at the bottom-right of the main screen
Long-press the button (don't just tap)
The emoji picker flyout appears with your recent emojis

📸

iPhone 17 Pro-emoji-picker-flyout.png

Emoji picker flyout showing recent emojis in a grid

Using the Picker

The picker shows up to 10 emojis arranged in two rows. These are your most frequently used emojis, weighted by usage so your favorites appear first.

Tap Actions

Tap any emoji to instantly create a new memo with that emoji
Tap "No emoji" to create a memo without an emoji
Use the keyboard picker (magnifying glass icon) to choose any emoji

Long-Press Actions

Long-pressing any emoji (or "No emoji") creates a memo and performs an additional action based on your settings:

Start Live Activity: Creates the memo and immediately starts tracking elapsed time on your Lock Screen and Dynamic Island. Great for timing activities.
Open Edit Sheet: Creates the memo and opens it for editing, so you can add a label, note, or adjust the timestamp.

You can configure which action long-press triggers in Settings → Long Press Action.

Filter Toggles

The bottom row of the picker includes two optional filter toggles that control which emojis appear. These settings persist between sessions.

Hidden Views Filter

Controls whether emojis from hidden saved views appear in the picker.

Eye icon (tinted): Show all emojis
Eye with slash (gray): Hide emojis from hidden views

Checkpoint Emojis Filter

Controls whether emojis used only in checkpoints appear in the picker.

Flag icon (tinted): Include checkpoint emojis
Flag icon (gray): Exclude checkpoint-only emojis

The hidden views toggle only appears when you have at least one hidden saved view. Checkpoint emojis are weighted lower than parent memo emojis (checkpoints count as 1 point, parent memos as 2).

How Emoji Ranking Works

Emojis in the picker are sorted by a weighted usage score:

Parent memos: Each use counts as 2 points
Checkpoints: Each use counts as 1 point (when included)

This weighting ensures that emojis you use for main activities appear before emojis you only use for progress markers within those activities.

Example If you use 🏃 (running) for 5 workout memos and 💧 (water) for 15 hydration checkpoints: Running gets 10 points (5×2), Water gets 15 points (15×1). With checkpoint emojis enabled, water ranks higher. With them disabled, only running appears.

Backfilling

The picker always shows 10 emojis. If you don't have enough frequently-used emojis to fill the grid, it backfills with default emojis. As you use more emojis, your personal favorites will replace the defaults.

Tips

👔

Hide work emojis on weekends

Create a saved view for work-related emojis and hide it. Toggle the eye filter to quickly switch between seeing all emojis or just personal ones.

✅

Keep checkpoint emojis separate

Use distinct emojis for checkpoints (like ✅ or 💧) versus main activities. This keeps your picker clean when the checkpoint filter is off.

⏱️

Quick capture without emoji

The "No emoji" option creates a plain timestamp memo instantly. Useful when you just need to mark the time without categorizing.

📍

Start tracking with long-press

Long-press any emoji to create a memo and start a Live Activity in one gesture. Perfect for timing workouts or tasks.

Related Features

Saved Views - Create and hide filtered views
Live Activities - Track elapsed time on your Lock Screen
Control Center - Another way to quickly create memos

Ready to try it?

Time Memos will be available on the App Store soon.

Coming Soon