56 New Emoji Available in Latest macOS High Sierra Beta

Apple on Wednesday released a new beta version of macOS High Sierra 10.13.1, and the update includes a slew of new Unicode 10 emoji.

There are 56 new emoji in all, including a wide range of new animals, dinosaurs, fantasy creatures, food and clothing items, smiley faces and other characters. With various gender and skin modifiers, the total amount of options is actually closer to 239. While the Unicode 10 emoji have been available in beta versions of iOS 11.1, the newest macOS High Sierra 10.13.1 beta adds them to the Mac operating system.

Some notable additions include several gender-neutral faces, an expanded variety of wellness-related emoji such as a meditation pose emoji and spa emoji, and characters like a girl with headscarf and a breastfeeding mother. There’s also an orange heart emoji now, allowing users to spell out a rainbow of hearts for the first time. Unicode 10 also adds the sign for “I Love You,” in American Sign Language — something that activists have advocated for years.

In addition to the emoji, macOS High Sierra also includes various bug fixes, performance enhancements, security patches and other under-the-hood changes. These updates aren’t as fun as new emoji, but they’re no less important.

Chief among those is a fix for a serious Wi-Fi security vulnerability discovered a couple weeks ago. Basically, the flaw could allow attackers to gain access to unencrypted and sensitive data over otherwise secure networks.

How to Download the New Beta

The new macOS High Sierra 10.13.1 beta can now be downloaded by both registered Apple developers and public beta testers. It’s available via the Apple Developer’s Portal, or through the Software Update tool in the Mac App Store — provided that the proper configuration profile is installed on a device.

To download the new update, you’ll need to either be an app developer or a registered beta tester. To sign up for the latter program, you can register your device at Apple’s software testing website.

As always, it’s recommended that you avoid downloading beta software, which can be buggy, on your daily driver. At the very least, users should perform a full backup of their device before proceeding.