I love emojis.
Yup. That’s me, in 2026. Out loud and proud.
The caveat — of course, there’s a caveat — is that my emoji love is very specific: I love using emojis to modify messages in a text chat.
This feels dumb to explain, because you have phones, so you’ve almost certainly seen this, even if you’re not using it yourself.
But to be clear: You use these when your friend tells you the dinner reservation is for 7, and you reply by appending a “thumbs up” to their note. Or someone posts something dumb in the groupchat, and you add a “ha ha” to the screenshot.
Apple
To me, it’s a perfect form of communication: a one-character way to signal to someone else that you’re picking up what they’re putting down. And, crucially, that you don’t need to add more than that.
Depending on the context, that thumbs up says “Gotcha.” Or: “Agreed.” Or: “We’re good.” Or: “I’m politely nodding along.” Or: “See you there.” The ha-ha means … OK, no need to explain.
The point is that tiny emojis in your texts augment your conversation, by adding a bit of nuance and acknowledgment stuff that’s standard in an in-person interaction, and routinely lost when we communicate digitally. Using them makes me feel more efficient, but also more human.
Apple called these in-text emojis “tapbacks” when it introduced them in 2016, and I bet zero people who don’t work at Apple have ever called them that. They’re now standard anywhere you message people: Slack, Android phones, WhatsApp, and Facebook, etc.
The one place they didn’t exist was where I really wanted them: in email.
At a minimum, letting me heart or thumbs up an email would let us all move along, instead of the endless cycle of “sounds good”https://www.businessinsider.com/”looking forward”https://www.businessinsider.com/”great me too”https://www.businessinsider.com/”see you there” replies and counter-replies that so many email chains sputter into at the end. It also solves a very different problem: You didn’t respond to my email. Did you get it? Do you agree? Do you hate me?
Cut to a few weeks ago, when I started seeing updates in my inbox telling me that Tyler had hearted my email. Or that the receptionist at a doctor’s office was acknowledging my plan to call tomorrow:
Gmail screenshot
My prayers have been … answered? How’d that happen?
Turns out, it has been in the works for a couple of years, courtesy of Google — the same company my colleague Katie thinks is going to ruin the internet. But how could a company bringing emojis to email be anything but unalloyed good?
Google first introduced the emoji reply option to a subset of Gmail users in October 2023 and has been gradually widening the circle, up until this January, when it became the default for all users around the world. And, based on my incredibly unscientific personal survey, people are just starting to use it.
Second caveat: Other than playing with this option while working on this story, I have yet to fully incorporate email emojis into my life.
One big reason is that, just like with Apple’s tapbacks, Gmail emojis work best in an all-Gmail setting. I have personal and work Gmail accounts, but use them with web browsers and Apple’s email app. Email emojis, just like email itself, are set up to work anywhere, on any client. But the interactions would be much smoother and seamless if I were on Gmail’s dedicated app, says Blake Barnes, a Google VP who oversees product for Gmail.
And honestly, that might be motivation enough for me to swap email apps. But there’s also a bit of a collective action problem: Those emoji responses really work best when you’re using them with other people who use emoji responses. Everyone gets it; no one is surprised by it.
You don’t have to wonder why a work contact you’ve never met in real life hearts your text. But it might jar you the first time you see it in your inbox.
So I’m giving myself a little time to adjust to the new world that just opened up. In my defense: When you’ve been nerdily dreaming about something for years, and it shows up one day without fanfare, it can be a little destabilizing.
But I’m also imploring you, dear reader, to start hearting and thumbs-upping your Gmails.
It’s easy! And it will improve your life — and make me happy. Win, win.
