Google has added support for emoji reactions to emails. The new feature was in the works for the past few weeks and is now rolling out to Gmail users on Android. The company plans to expand its availability to the iOS app and the web version of Gmail over the next few months.
Gmail for Android gains emoji reaction support
The latest version of the Gmail app for Android adds a new “Add emoji reaction” button to the bottom of an email. Tapping it will bring up the usual emoji picker, with the “More” button letting you see more emojis. Select an emoji to send it as your reaction to the message. Of course, you can always send a text response to the message if an emoji reaction isn’t enough.
For group emails, the app will show reactions from other users as well. You can press and hold an emoji to see who reacted using that emoji. You can quickly react to the message by tapping one of those emojis. However, the feature isn’t available for emails sent to more than 20 recipients.
If you want to react to an older message in a thread, you can do that by tapping the More button (three vertical dots) next to it and selecting “Add reaction.” Google also lets you remove or undo an emoji reaction after adding it. However, you must act quickly — you have 5-30 seconds to remove the reaction, depending on your “Undo Send” settings in Gmail. You will see an “undo” button below the message after you add a reaction.
Update your Gmail app to get this feature
Gmail’s emoji reaction feature is only available on the latest version of the app for Android, which you can download from the Google Play Store (link below). If you’re using an older version, you won’t be able to react to messages with emails. Reactions from other users may also come as an email with a link that says “[Name] reacted via Gmail.”
Google says you may get these emails for emoji reactions if you have turned off the Conversation view, don’t have a Gmail address, use a third-party email app such as Apple Mail or Microsoft Outlook, or use a work or school account. Moreover, you can’t react to emails if you use a work or school account or if you are in BCC.
The feature doesn’t work for messages sent to a group email list as well. Additionally, Gmail only lets you send a maximum of 20 emoji reactions to the same message. Reactions aren’t available for emails with Client-side encryption or when the sender has a custom reply-to address. You can click the button below to download the latest update for the Gmail app for Android.
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