Social media and text messaging have made emoji an integral part of our daily conversations. Emoji reactions are an easy way to express emotions about a message you receive without having to type out an entire response. Previously, emoji reactions were only found on some of thebest messaging apps, but they may soon be coming to your emails.
Two weeks ago,Steve Moser of The Tape Drivefound code in the iOS Gmail app suggesting Google might add emoji reactions. Now, AssembleDebug, owner of theGapps Flags & Leaks Telegram channel, has shared new evidence to support this claim onThe SP Android.
The latest Gmail APK for Android contains several strings of code referring to the new feature. AssembleDebug found the lines below referring to the feature directly:
Judging by that last string, it seems like this feature won’t be coming to everyone at once. It will likely be undergoing some sort of beta testing before it is available to the public, and the “user” phrasing suggests an account-based change.
There were also a handful of restrictions that AssembleDebug found listed in the code. These seem to be tooltips Gmail will throw in situations where emoji reactions aren’t supported:
It sounds like these restrictions wouldn’t just be for Android and iOS, with some likely applying to the desktop website as well. It’s not clear how it will work, but if it’s anything like most messengers' implementation, you would be able to right-click or long-press an email to choose from a handful of popular reactions, then potentially open an overflow menu to select from the full list of emoji. As for how Gmail might notify the sender of your reaction, your guess is as good as ours right now.
