Gmail now has emoji reactions, for better or worse
Emoji were already almost everywhere. Everywhere, that is, except in Gmail. Would you even want your email service to provide this functionality? Well, whether you do or you don't, it's now here. Gmail is getting emoji reactions, starting on Android phones and tablets.
Undoubtedly, if this proves popular, it will quickly spread to iOS and the web. Similarly to how your favorite chat app already does it, emoji reactions will be available on each Gmail message. Once you've opened a message, scroll down and you'll find the new emoji reaction button to the right of Reply, Reply all, and Forward. Tap on that and you'll get a row of emojis you can react with, tap on the one you want and that's it, you've reacted.
Unsurprisingly, you aren't confined to Google's default selection of emojis to react with. Tapping the plus button at the end of the row will let you add others. All of the reactions to an email will be viewable at the bottom, and if you tap and hold on each one you'll find out who reacted like that. If you just tap (without holding) on an existing reaction, you'll react the same way too.
But wait, there's more! The party popper emoji will enable a full-page animation, and Google promises that select other emojis will come with such magical powers too. You can also remove an emoji reaction by tapping Undo right after you created it. This Undo option will show up for as long as you've set up "Undo Send" for emails in Gmail settings on your computer.
Now for the not so fun part. If you use a third party email client with your Gmail account, every single emoji reaction will arrive as a separate email reply. Every. Single. One. The same goes if you have Conversation view set to off in Gmail.
Emoji reactions won't be available for school or work accounts, and they also won't be offered if an email is sent to more than 20 people, to a group email list, if you're in BCC, if you've already sent more than 20 reactions to the same message, if the sender has a custom reply-to address, or if the message is encrypted with Client-side encryption.
If you don't see emoji reactions in Gmail yet, know that when Google turns on such a new feature it usually takes at least a few days for everyone to get it.