How to Type the Shrug Emoji
Step-by-step for typing the shrug emoji ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ on iPhone, Android, Mac, Windows, Linux and Chromebook.
Why there's no simple keyboard shortcut
Almost every physical and on-screen keyboard layout in the world is built around the letters, digits and basic punctuation of a specific language, plus a small set of shift/alt-modified symbols. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ needs two characters — the macron ¯ and the Japanese katakana ツ — that fall well outside that core set on an English-language keyboard. Unlike a genuinely single-character emoji (which any modern keyboard's emoji picker handles natively), the shrug is a nine-character sequence assembled from three different corners of Unicode, so there's no single 'shrug key' any OS could reasonably add. That's the root reason every method below is either a workaround (copy-paste) or a one-time setup (text replacement) rather than a built-in shortcut.
The one-line answer
There's no key combination for ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ built into any operating system, because it isn't one character — it's nine (macron, backslash, underscore, parenthesis, katakana ツ, parenthesis, underscore, slash, macron). The fastest way to get it onto your screen is to copy it from the tool above, then set up a one-time shortcut so you never have to copy it again. Below is the exact method for every major platform.
iPhone / iPad (iOS & iPadOS)
- Open Settings → General → Keyboard → Text Replacement.
- Tap the + in the top corner.
- In the 'Phrase' field, paste
¯\_(ツ)_/¯(copy it from the tool above first). - In the 'Shortcut' field, type a short word you won't type by accident —
shrugworks well. - Tap Save. Now typing
shrugfollowed by a space, in any app, expands to the full shrug.
Android (Gboard)
- Open Gboard settings → Dictionary → Personal dictionary.
- Pick your language (usually English).
- Tap + to add a new entry.
- In the 'Word' field, paste
¯\_(ツ)_/¯. - In the 'Shortcut' field, type
shrug. - Save. Typing
shrugin Gboard now suggests the full shrug as an autocomplete option — tap it to insert. - Note: on Samsung Keyboard, the equivalent setting is Settings → Smart typing → Text shortcuts, with the same paste-then-shortcut steps.
Mac (macOS)
- Open System Settings → Keyboard → Text Replacements (older macOS: System Preferences → Keyboard → Text).
- Click +.
- In the 'Replace' field, type
shrug. - In the 'With' field, paste
¯\_(ツ)_/¯. - Click away to save. This syncs to your iPhone/iPad automatically over iCloud if you're signed into the same Apple ID, so you only have to set it up once.
Windows 10 / 11
- There's no built-in text-replacement feature on Windows (unlike macOS/iOS), so pick one of two routes:
- Route A — Alt code + Character Map (no install): the macron (¯) can be typed with Alt+0175 on the numeric keypad; the katakana ツ is harder to reach this way, so most Windows users skip straight to Route B.
- Route B — PowerToys Keyboard Manager or AutoHotkey (recommended): install Microsoft PowerToys (free, official Microsoft tool) and use its text-shortcut remapping, or save this one-line AutoHotkey script (works in both AutoHotkey v1 and v2):
::shrug::¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Run the script, and typingshrugfollowed by a space in any Windows app expands to the full shrug.
Linux
- Most Linux desktop environments (GNOME, KDE) support a Compose key for special characters, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ isn't a single compose sequence — the practical route is a text-expansion tool.
- Install espanso (free, cross-platform, works on Linux, macOS and Windows) or use your desktop environment's built-in autocorrect/text-replacement dictionary if it has one (GNOME's IBus supports custom emoji/text shortcuts in recent versions).
- Add a rule mapping
:shrug:orshrugto¯\_(ツ)_/¯, following the tool's setup instructions.
Chromebook (ChromeOS)
- ChromeOS has no built-in text-replacement feature.
- Use a Chrome Web Store text-expander extension (search 'text expander' or 'text blaze'), and add a shortcut the same way as the other platforms — paste the shrug as the expansion, pick a trigger word.
- Alternatively, just bookmark this page and copy the shrug directly whenever you need it — ChromeOS renders it correctly with no setup at all.
Fastest cross-platform tool: a snippet manager
If you use the shrug across multiple devices and operating systems, a dedicated snippet manager is more reliable than per-OS text replacement. On Mac, Alfred or Raycast snippets sync and work system-wide; on Windows, PowerToys (above) covers the same need; on any platform, a browser-based snippet extension works inside web apps specifically. Whichever you choose, the setup is the same one-time action: paste ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ once as the snippet's expansion text, assign a trigger word, and you're done for good.
Double-checking it typed correctly
Whichever method you use, paste or type the result somewhere visible and compare it against ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ before relying on it. The two most common setup mistakes are trivial but easy to miss: pasting only part of the sequence into the 'phrase' or 'expansion' field (losing an arm or the face), or accidentally including a trailing space that shows up every time the shortcut expands. Both are one-time fixes — just re-copy the full nine-character sequence from the tool at the top of this page and re-save the shortcut.
If you'd rather use the emoji instead
Everything above is specifically for the text kaomoji ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. The graphic 🤷 emoji doesn't need any of this setup — it's already in every standard emoji picker (the emoji key on mobile keyboards, Win+. on Windows, Cmd+Ctrl+Space on Mac). See the full text shrug vs emoji shrug comparison to decide which one actually fits what you're typing.
FAQ
What's the fastest way to type the shrug emoji?
Copy it — from this page, or the main shrug copy & paste tool. Every method below that involves 'typing' it from a keyboard shortcut still requires you to set that shortcut up once by pasting the character in the first place, so copy-paste is the fastest method on any device with no setup at all.
Can I type ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ using only my keyboard, with no copy-paste?
On most keyboards, no — the macron (¯) and the katakana ツ aren't on a standard US, UK or most other physical layouts. Windows users can type it via Alt codes and the Character Map (covered below); everyone else needs either a text-replacement shortcut (set up once, using paste) or a Unicode input method like macOS's 'Unicode Hex Input' source.
Does the shrug emoji type the same on a Chromebook?
Yes — ChromeOS renders ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ correctly since it uses the same font-rendering stack as Android for CJK and symbol support. There's no built-in text-replacement feature on ChromeOS, so the practical method is either copy-paste or a Chrome extension text expander.
Should I type the text shrug ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ or the 🤷 emoji?
They're typed completely differently — the emoji 🤷 is available from any standard emoji picker (Win+. on Windows, Cmd+Ctrl+Space on Mac, the emoji key on mobile keyboards) with no special setup, while the text shrug needs one of the methods below. See the full text vs emoji comparison for when to use each.