WhatsApp’s emoji reactions feature expands from six options to thousands

WhatsApp users will soon have the ability to react to messages with any emoji, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced in a Facebook post. “We’re rolling out the ability to use any emoji as a reaction on WhatsApp,” the CEO wrote before listing a couple of his favorite emoji. It comes just a few short months after WhatsApp added the ability to react with a limited number of just six emoji.

Like previous emoji reactions, the feature is accessible by long-pressing the message you want to react to. This opens the menu containing the previous six emoji reactions along with a new plus icon. Tapping the plus icon opens a menu containing every available emoji, ranging from standard smiley faces to recent additions like the saluting emoji and the melting face, and it also includes different skin tone variations. I suspect people are going to get very creative with their emoji reactions very soon.

The expanded emoji reaction feature has previously been spotted in the beta versions of the service, including on both iOS and Android, and brings WhatsApp in line with the functionality already available on Meta’s Messenger service. The expanded emoji reactions feature is rolling out now and will be available to all WhatsApp users in the coming weeks.