New ways to express yourself! Emoji reactions are coming to Gmail

tech.hindustantimes.com:

If you are someone who relies on emojis to convey your feelings and reactions swiftly, you're in for a treat. Imagine being able to respond to emails with just a simple emoji instead of typing out a full response. Well, Google is working on making this a reality for Gmail users. The tech giant is reportedly in the process of adding the option to react to emails using emojis directly within the Gmail platform.

While this feature isn't live for everyone just yet, Android users can catch a sneak peek of it in action. Emoji reactions have been quietly integrated into the Gmail app, and with a bit of tweaking, you can enable and use them. A blog post by @AssembleDebug shed light on this feature, which is already partially functional.

In this new setup, an emoji reaction button appears within emails right alongside the traditional reply button. Initially, it provides you with a selection of popular emojis like hearts, party hats, thumbs up, laughter, prayer hands, and smiley faces. However, there's also a convenient "+'' button at the end that lets you pick from a vast array of emojis to react to the email. Once you've chosen your emoji, it will be displayed at the bottom of the email.

What's more, you're not limited to just one reaction per email. Multiple reactions can be added to a single email, although there seems to be a cap at 50 unique reactions.

For the recipient, especially if they're not using Gmail with emoji reactions, your reaction will appear as a separate email featuring a prominent display of the selected emoji. However, Gmail users are designed to see the reaction as an integrated part of the original email, rather than a separate reply.

In essence, when you react to an email in Gmail, other Gmail users will see