Dab on them emoji haters! Google is adding the ability to react to an email with emoji, starting with Gmail for Android, to let you “express yourself and quickly respond”.
At the bottom of an email, you’ll soon see an “Add emoji reaction” button with a picker allowing the usual complement. For group emails, points out 9to5 Google, you’ll see everyone’s reactions, with the ability to tap existing ones. However, this feature isn’t available on messages with more than 20 recipients. Also, you won’t be able to use emoji reactions with your school or work accounts.
Google has confirmed the feature that will roll out gradually, starting with Android users and coming to web and iOS users over the next few months. And there are a few tips: To discover who reacted to an email, touch and hold the emoji reaction you want to check, to reuse the reaction someone else added to the email, tap the existing reaction chip and to add an emoji for any message in the thread, tap ‘More More’ in the message, then Add reaction.
There is also the ability to remove an emoji reaction, which depends on your ‘Undo Send’ settings in Gmail. You have from five up to 30 seconds to remove an emoji reaction after you add it. To change the amount of time, update the send cancellation period for Gmail messages in Settings.
When you have access to the feature, you’ll see a smiley at the bottom of a message. Click on that to choose your emoji from the menu. A couple of emoji will come with special powers, like the party popper emoji that will enable a full-page animation.