Every standard emoji, divided into the nine categories they actually belong to. 1,923 characters, each a button: tap once and it is on your clipboard.
Most emoji lists are one enormous wall of characters. It looks impressive and it is useless, because you cannot find anything and the page takes forever to load. This set is divided the way people think instead: faces first, then people and gestures, then animals and nature, then food, places, activities, objects, abstract symbols and finally flags. Each category page lists the emoji with how many are in it, so you know what you are opening before you open it.
Nearly every human emoji exists in six versions: the default, plus five skin tones. That multiplies the people category alone into more than two thousand near-identical characters. Listing them all would turn a browsable grid into a wall of repeated faces and slow the page down for no benefit. Every modern keyboard already offers a tone when you long-press or right-click a person emoji, so the tone is the one thing you can add after copying rather than before.
An emoji is one or more Unicode code points, which is why they work in text fields, file names and usernames. The upshot is that emoji are not images: they scale to any size without blurring, they take the colour of the font they are rendered in, and they cost the page almost nothing in weight. The downside is that Unicode does not control the artwork. Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft and X each draw their own version, so the same character can look glossy on an iPhone, flatter on Android and outlined on Windows โ the character is identical even when the picture is not.
Use the search box on any category page. It filters against the official Unicode name of every character, so "grinning" finds the grinning face, "tornado" finds the tornado, and "unamused" finds the one you are looking for. The count next to the box tells you how many matched, so you can tell instantly whether your word is too narrow.
Most emoji mistakes are tone mistakes rather than factual ones. A few conventions are worth knowing because they are widely understood and easy to get wrong.
| You mean | People use | Careful with |
|---|---|---|
| Genuine laughter | ๐ or ๐คฃ | The skull (๐) means the same thing now but reads as sarcasm to older audiences |
| Affection, not romance | โค๏ธ or ๐ | ๐ and ๐ read as romantic rather than friendly |
| Thanks | ๐ or ๐ซถ | ๐ also means please; the context has to carry the difference |
| Something is excellent | ๐ฅ or ๐ฏ | Both are casual โ out of place in a formal email |
| Sympathy | ๐ or ๐ | โค๏ธ can read as trivialising in a condolence message |
| Not knowing | ๐คท or ๐ค | ๐คท can read as dismissive in a work thread |
Emoji in a username are far less reliable than in a message. Some services strip them, some permit only a subset, and some count each one against a short limit. If you want a decorated name, a plain text symbol is usually the safer choice than an emoji โ it takes fewer characters and survives more filters. Where you do use emoji in a name, keep it to one or two at the end, because an emoji in front of the first letter breaks alphabetical sorting in member lists and makes the name harder to search.
Unicode defines the character; it does not define the drawing. Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft and X each commission their own artwork, so the smiling face you chose can appear glossy on one phone and flat on another. The character is identical in every case. The only situation where this matters practically is when a specific look is the point โ a thumbnail, a logo, anything printed โ and there an image is the right tool rather than an emoji.