Gmail is getting emoji reactions 🤩

It’s finally here — the tool that could turn your email inbox into a nightmare or a pure delight, depending on your POV. Google is adding the ability to react to an email with an emoji.

When you have access, you’ll see a 🙂 at the bottom of a message. Click on that to choose your emoji from the menu, then just tap and send. A couple of emoji will have special powers, including the party popper emoji 🎉 that will enable a full-page animation. Yay.

It sounds like the feature will be similar to how most of us use emoji to react to social media posts; you can touch and hold an existing reaction to see who added it as well as tap to reuse a reaction someone else added.

But in a similar way to how Apple’s iMessage Tapbacks are most useful on iOS, emoji reactions will work best on Gmail. If you use a third-party email client, every person’s reaction will arrive as a separate email … 😭.

There are a few more restrictions. You won’t be able to use emoji reactions with your school or work accounts. They also won’t be available if the message is sent to more than 20 people, to a group email list, if you’ve been bcc’d, and in a few other instances. Most importantly, you won’t be able to react to a message if you’ve already sent more than 20 reactions to that message.