There are 1,906 emoji shortcodes. You will use about forty. This page is that forty, grouped by what you are trying to say rather than by Unicode category, because nobody has ever thought βI need a Smileys & Emotion, subgroup face-affection.β
Everything below works in Slack and GitHub today, and with Emoji Anywhere installed it works in every other text field in your browser too. In practice you never type a full code: :fi plus Enter is π₯, because suggestions appear after the first letter or two.
How the names work
Knowing the logic beats memorizing the list. Shortcode names are compressed versions of the official Unicode character names: FIRE is :fire:, ROCKET is :rocket:, PARTY POPPER is⦠:tada:. Right, about that.
The exceptions are the ones you have to just learn, and they are almost all famous. :tada: is named for the sound. The laughing-crying face is :joy: because its formal name is FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY, which is why searching βlaughβ or βlolβ finds nothing. The thumbs up answers to both :+1: and :thumbsup:. And the green done-checkbox is :white_check_mark:, a name that describes the checkmark rather than the green box, for reasons lost to a 2010 spec document. Maybe five names in the whole system are surprises; everything else you can guess.
Reactions
| Code | Emoji | When |
|---|---|---|
:joy: | π | the workhorse |
:skull: | π | too funny to survive; this is what younger users type instead of π |
:fire: | π₯ | anything good |
:100: | π― | strong agreement |
:eyes: | π | seen, intrigued, watching |
:clap: | π | earned applause |
:thinking: | π€ | the polite pushback |
:exploding_head: | π€― | real surprise |
:sob: | π | overwhelmed, usually positively |
Work
| Code | Emoji | When |
|---|---|---|
:tada: | π | shipped, merged, done |
:rocket: | π | launches and momentum |
:white_check_mark: | β | confirmed, complete |
:pray: | π | thanks, or please review |
:+1: | π | approval without a meeting |
:bulb: | π‘ | the idea line |
:warning: | β οΈ | heads-up |
:bug: | π | self-explanatory |
:memo: | π | notes, docs, minutes |
Warmth
| Code | Emoji | When |
|---|---|---|
:heart: | β€οΈ | the classic; typing <3 also works |
:heart_eyes: | π | loud enthusiasm |
:hug: | π€ | support and welcomes |
:sparkles: | β¨ | anything slightly magical |
:partying_face: | π₯³ | birthdays and wins |
:pleading_face: | π₯Ί | the sweet ask |
:blush: | π | warm and impossible to misread |
The ones people copy-paste for years
These are not emoji at all, which is exactly why no picker has them and why people end up on ad-covered copy-paste sites for the fourth time in a week. They are all typeable:
| Code | Output |
|---|---|
:shrug: | Β―\_(γ)_/Β― |
:tableflip: | (β―Β°β‘Β°)β―οΈ΅ β»ββ» |
:unflip: | β¬ββ¬ γ( γ-γγ) |
:lenny: | ( Ν‘Β° ΝΚ Ν‘Β°) |
:emdash: | β |
:arrow: | β |
:check: | β |
:degree: | Β° |
The full set of 276 kaomoji and symbols is here, and every popular emoji has its own page with aliases and related codes.
How to actually learn them
Do not study this page. Install the extension, then type : and guess. The search is forgiving; it matches names, synonyms and partial words, so :lau finds π even though its real name is :joy:. Anything you pick gets remembered, and :: (two colons, no name) brings up your personal most-used list, which after a week is the only cheat sheet you need. The forty above are just a head start on what your own list will look like.