Who doesn’t want to express emotions richly and hint at things smartly? With emoji characters, you can. Find out here how to add and insert emojis on Android ⤓ using the standard keyboard.
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First, Look at Any Gothic Church
Take but a cursory glance at a Gothic cathedral, and you will see rising windows and soaring ceilings and massive flying buttresses, of course, to support the lot.
On top of the buttresses are invariably decorative little towers — or are they?
No doubt decorative, the pinnacles are not just for display: they add important weight to aid the crucial buttressing business with stability and balance transferring lateral forces into the ground.
Take but a cursory glance at any modern phone, and you will see — emojis. The little pictures are not just decoration, of course, but aid the crucial communication business. Here’s how to add them to your texts:
How to Add Emojis on Android
Time needed: 1 minute
To add an emoji character to text on an Android device using the Gboard keyboard.
- Put the text cursor where you want the emoji character to appear.
- Tap the emoji key on the keyboard.
No emoji button: Tap and hold the , (comma) next to the Space key and then tap the emoji button in the pop-up.
- Go to the emoji tab.
- Tap any emoji to insert it.
Categories and recently used: Tap categories to jump to their emoji; the most recently used emojis are at the very top.
Searching for emojis: Using Gboard, you cannot search for emoji characters; you can have the keyboard suggest emojis as replacements for what you type, however — see below.
Still looking for just the right emoji? The best sites to search for emojis
Insert Emojis on Android Using Auto-Complete
You can also use text completion suggestions to replace some words with corresponding emojis — and, in a way, search for the appropriate emoji character.
To insert emojis using auto-completion:
- Type the word you want replaced with an emoji.
- As soon as the sought emoji appears in the keyboard’s auto-complete strip, tap it.
Add a Dedicated Emoji Key to the Gboard Keyboard on Android
To add an emoji key next to Space on Android Gboard:
- Open the Settings app.
- Go to the System category.
- Select Langauges & input.
- Now tap Virtual keyboard under Keyboard & inputs.
- Select Gboard.
- Choose Preferences.
- Enable Show emoji switch key.
Emojis or languages: You can enable the switch key either for emojis or languages, not both.
(First published June 2021, last updated April 2023)