Sometimes it can be difficult to understand what someone means in a phone message. And when you throw emoji into the mix, things get even more complicated. A "😃" or "❤️" are easy to understand, but how are "😩" and "😭" different, and what does it mean when someone sends you food emoji like "🍆" or "🍑"? Over time, emoji meanings have become subjective, depending on a message's context and wider cultural trends.
With over 3,000 emoji, there's one for almost anything.
Which shaking smiley face should you use? Is there a difference between each different colored heart? Does the peach emoji actually mean fruit anymore? Here's how to figure out what all 3,790 emoji mean and what emoji could be next.
Read more: We Could Get a Sasquatch Emoji Soon
Emojipedia is here to help
Emojipedia is an online encyclopedia of emoji managed by people who research emoji. The site sorts emoji into nine categories, including Smileys, People, Objects, Activity and more. Each category then breaks down emoji into further subsections. So if you click into Smileys, for example, you'll see sections like Smiling & Affectionate and Sleepy & Unwell.
If you click an individual emoji, Emojipedia will give you a brief description of that emoji. For example, here's what Emojipedia writes about the "👅" (tongue) emoji:
"A tongue, sticking out. May be used as a childish sign of defiance. Alternatively: licking, in various contexts."
Emojipedia will also give you a list of other emoji that this particular emoji works well with. In the case of the face in clouds emoji, Emojipedia's suggestions include the "🫠" melting face and the "🫦" biting lip -- quite a range there.
What's a text message without an emoji or two?
Each Emojipedia entry also shows you the different artwork for each emoji across platforms, as well as how the artwork evolved. The emoji entry will also show you shortcodes and other names for each emoji, if applicable.
What are the most popular emoji?
You may have your own go-to emoji, but according to Emojipedia, these are the most popular emoji as of early March. The list changes periodically, so what's popular now might not be popular next month or around a holiday. Note that not all platforms support all the latest emoji, so they may not all appear on your device.
- ❤️ Red heart
- 😭 Loudly crying face
- 😏 Smirking face
- 🔥 Fire
- ✅ Check mark button
- ✨ Sparkles
- 💀 Skull
- 😂 Face with tears of joy
- 😊 Smiling face with smiling eyes
- ⭐ Star
What are the latest emoji?
In September, Google unveiled Emoji 16.0, which includes eight new emoji. The new emoji are a paint splatter, harp, fingerprint, root vegetable, leafless tree, shovel, the flag of the tiny island of Sark (population: 500) and a tired-looking emoji with bags under its eyes -- honestly, same.
It might be a while before you see these emoji in texts, though. Google wrote online in July that new emoji would be available on Android devices in March this year. iPhone users likely won't see these emoji until then, too. While Unicode released its version 15.1 with new emoji in September 2023, those emoji didn't land on iPhones until Apple released iOS 17.4 in March 2024. Since Apple indicated it's not going to released iOS 18.4 until April, iPhone users will likely have to wait until then for new emoji.
How often are new emoji added?
Anyone can submit an idea for a new emoji. The Unicode Standard -- a universal character encoding standard -- is responsible for creating new emoji. Unicode proposed nine new emoji in November, 2024, including a Sasquatch and an orca. However, those are just proposed emoji. Unicode will decide in September which emoji to add next.
What about custom emoji, like Apple's Genmoji?
Apple unveiled its emoji generator, Genmoji, at WWDC 2024, and the tech giant included the feature in iOS 18.2. However, only people with an iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max or a device from the iPhone 16 lineup can access Genmoji for now.
If you can't use Genmoji and want to create your own custom emoji, Emojipedia is home to two custom emoji generators.
First is Emojipedia's AI emoji generator. You can use this tool to create anything from a frog wearing a cowboy hat to a heart shaped pizza. You type your description of the emoji into the generator, and the tool will create an emoji based on your description. You can then download or copy your custom emoji to your clipboard and use it as a sticker across messaging apps like WhatsApp and iMessage. This emoji generator is free, but you can only generate three emoji per day so make sure you describe your emoji as much as possible so you don't waste one of your tries.
If you do run out of AI emoji generations for the day, you can also use the Emoji Mashup Bot, which combines two emoji from the Twemoji set. You can use this as many times as you want, but you can only choose up to 113 emoji to combine and they are all smileys. That means you can't be as creative in your creation as you might be in the AI emoji generator.
All this just for emoji?
Yeah, but wait there's more! Emojipedia also hosts the World Emoji Awards on World Emoji Day, July 17. Awards are given for things like Most Popular New Emoji and Most Anticipated Emoji. Winners are determined by popular vote on X, formerly known as Twitter, and any emoji approved the year prior is eligible to win.
New emoji are added every year, and there are even awards given out for new emoji.
The winner for the Most Popular New Emoji in 2024 was the head shaking horizontally (🙂↔️) followed by the head shaking vertically (🙂↕️) and the phoenix (🐦🔥). The winner of the Most Anticipated Emoji went to the face with bags under its eyes and the Most 2024 Emoji award went to the melting face (🫠) for the second year in a row -- it still fits.
The sparkles (✨) emoji was also given the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024. Emojipedia wrote that this emoji has been among the most popular emoji since 2015, and it's been adopted as the go-to image for AI.
In 2023, the most popular emoji was the pink heart emoji (🩷) and the runner-up was the shaking face (🫨). The most anticipated emoji award in 2023 went to the head shaking horizontally (🙂↔️).
For more, here are the latest approved emoji, how to react to messages with emoji on your iPhone and how to use emoji instead of comments in Google Docs.