How to use this tool
Type a feeling or an object into the search box, such as "happy", "dog" or "celebration", and the grid narrows to the emoji that carry that keyword. The category tabs above the grid narrow things further. Clicking an emoji copies it to your clipboard immediately and also appends it to the compose box at the bottom, so you can click three or four in a row and press "Copy everything" once instead of switching back and forth between this page and your message. Hover over a button to see the keywords it is registered under, and after each click the status line shows the Unicode code point of the emoji you just copied (for example U+1F600).
What this list covers (counted at build time)
This is not a complete Unicode emoji dictionary, which contains thousands of entries. It is a hand-picked list of emoji people reach for most often in chats, comments and captions, each tagged with English search keywords. Right now it holds 105 distinct emoji and 217 different keywords. If the one you want is missing, use the emoji picker built into your operating system instead (on Windows press the Windows key and the period key, on macOS press Control + Command + Space).
| Category | Emoji in list | First five |
|---|---|---|
| Faces | 20 | 😀 😂 🥰 😍 😭 |
| Gestures | 12 | 👍 👎 👏 🙏 ✌️ |
| Animals | 14 | 🐶 🐱 🐰 🦁 🐻 |
| Food | 14 | 🍕 🍔 🍜 🍚 🍗 |
| Objects | 15 | 📱 💻 📷 🎁 💰 |
| Symbols | 12 | ❤️ 💯 ✅ ❌ ⭐ |
| Weather & Nature | 9 | ☀️ 🌧️ ⛄ 🌈 🌙 |
| Activities | 10 | ⚽ 🏀 🎮 🎵 🎉 |
If you add up the category rows you get 106, which is 1 more than the number of distinct emoji. One emoji (the airplane) is filed under two categories, Objects and Activities. The "All" tab and search results merge such duplicates, so you will see each emoji only once.
Getting better search results
The search looks at each keyword separately and checks whether what you typed appears inside that keyword. Typing "ha" therefore finds "happy" and "hamburger", and a longer word narrows the results faster. Upper and lower case do not matter, and leading or trailing spaces are ignored. A phrase works only when it is one of the stored keywords: "thumbs up", "heart eyes" and "ice cream" all match because they are stored as phrases, but a query that mixes two separate keywords, such as "smile dog", finds nothing. If a word returns nothing, try a near synonym ("sad" instead of "unhappy", "money" instead of "cash"), or leave the box empty and browse the category tabs. The official names used by the Unicode standard are not searchable here, only the plain everyday words listed in each button's tooltip.
Why one emoji is often several characters
An emoji looks like a single character on screen, but many are built from several Unicode code points. The table below was computed from the actual strings when this page was built.
| Kind | Glyph | Code points | Count | JS length | UTF-8 bytes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic emoji | 😀 | U+1F600 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| With variation selector (VS16) | ❤️ | U+2764 U+FE0F | 2 | 2 | 6 |
| With skin tone modifier | 👍🏽 | U+1F44D U+1F3FD | 2 | 4 | 8 |
| Family (ZWJ sequence) | 👨👩👧 | U+1F468 U+200D U+1F469 U+200D U+1F467 | 5 | 8 | 18 |
| Flag (two regional indicators) | 🇺🇸 | U+1F1FA U+1F1F8 | 2 | 4 | 8 |
"JS length" is what JavaScript reports for the string's length, which counts UTF-16 units. The family emoji joins three person emoji with two invisible joiner characters (U+200D), so it draws as one picture but has a length of 8 and takes 18 bytes in UTF-8. This matters whenever a text box enforces a limit: an SMS segment, a username field, a profile bio or a database column may count an emoji as anything from one to eight characters, depending on whether it counts code points, UTF-16 units or bytes. If you are close to a limit, test the field with the exact emoji you plan to use, and see the word counter for character counts of ordinary text.
Limits and edge cases
Appearance differs by platform. An emoji is a character, not a picture. The picture is drawn by the font that the operating system or app supplies, so the same grinning face looks different on iOS, Android, Windows and in each messaging app. The character you copy here is identical everywhere; only the drawing changes. Emoji added to the standard more recently may not exist in the font of an older phone or computer, in which case the recipient sees an empty box or a question mark instead.
The variation selector. 8 of the emoji in this list, such as the red heart, are stored with a trailing U+FE0F, which tells software to show the colorful picture rather than a plain text symbol. If that character is stripped when text is pasted through some editor or field, the symbol can come out as a small black-and-white glyph. This page copies each stored string unchanged, so the selector is preserved.
Clipboard permission. Browsers allow copying to the clipboard only on secure (HTTPS) pages and in response to a click, and some in-app browsers block it altogether. When copying fails you will see a message, and everything you clicked is still in the compose box, where you can select it by hand and copy it with your usual shortcut or the long-press menu on a phone.
Practical tips for using emoji
- Email subjects and titles. One or two emoji can make a subject line stand out, but some mail clients and older systems render them badly. Keep them out of anything that must stay clean, such as invoices or legal notices.
- Accessibility. Screen readers announce each emoji by its name, so a row of ten decorative emoji is read out ten times. Put emoji at the end of a sentence rather than in the middle of words, and do not rely on one to carry the only meaning.
- Tone. Meaning varies by community and age group. The folded hands can read as "thank you" or "please", and the thumbs up is friendly in many chats but curt in some. When writing to someone you do not know well, a plain word is safer.
- Consistency in design work. If an emoji is part of a logo, a slide or a web page, remember that it will change shape with the viewer's device. Use an image or icon set when the exact appearance matters.
Privacy
The emoji list ships inside this page, and searching only filters that list in your browser. Nothing you type or click is sent to a server. The tool writes to your clipboard when you click, but it never reads from it. The compose box is not saved anywhere and is emptied when you reload the page.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should I do if copying does not work?
Some browsers restrict clipboard access depending on security settings or because the page is open inside another app. Click the emoji to collect them in the compose box, select the text there and copy it manually. On a phone, press and hold inside the box and choose Copy.
How do I find an emoji that is not in the list?
The list is limited to commonly used emoji. Open the picker built into your system instead: press the Windows key and the period key on Windows, or Control + Command + Space on macOS. On phones, use the emoji keyboard and its search field.
Why does the emoji I sent look different to the person who received it?
Each platform draws emoji with its own font, so designs differ between vendors even though exactly the same character was delivered. That is normal and not a copying error.
Why does one emoji count as several characters in a text field?
As the table above shows, an emoji can consist of up to 5 code points, 8 UTF-16 units or 18 UTF-8 bytes, and different systems count in different ways. If a limit is tight, use fewer or simpler emoji and test the field.
Is my search sent anywhere?
No. Filtering happens in your browser on a list that is already part of the page, and no search terms or clicks are transmitted.
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