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What You'll Learn About New Emoji Characters

Emoji characters change and expand every year. Unicode Consortium, the organization that manages worldwide text standards, releases new emoji sets annually. This guide contains information about how new emoji are created, when they become available across devices, and how to find them once they're released.

New emoji typically arrive in the fall, though the exact timing varies by year. In 2023, Unicode 15.0 introduced 20 new emoji characters. In 2024, Unicode 15.1 added 31 emoji. Understanding this cycle helps you know when to look for fresh characters on your phone, computer, or tablet.

Each new emoji goes through a proposal and review process before official release. Users, companies, and cultural organizations suggest ideas. The Unicode Consortium reviews these proposals to ensure diversity, cultural accuracy, and practical usefulness. This means new emoji often reflect current events, cultural movements, or fill gaps in how people want to express themselves.

Different devices adopt new emoji at different speeds. Apple, Google, Microsoft, Samsung, and other tech companies must each design and program their own versions of Unicode-approved emoji. This is why you might see a new emoji on an iPhone before it appears on an Android phone, or vice versa. The guide explains these timing differences and what causes them.

Practical takeaway: Download this guide to learn the official Unicode release schedule and understand why new emoji don't arrive simultaneously across all devices and platforms.

How Emoji Get Created and Approved

The emoji creation process is formal and structured. It begins when someone submits a proposal to Unicode. Proposals can come from individual users, tech companies, advocacy groups, or cultural organizations. A proposal must explain why a new emoji is needed, provide design sketches, and show evidence of support or demand.

The Unicode Emoji Subcommittee reviews each proposal carefully. Committee members consider whether the proposed emoji would be widely used across cultures and languages. They check for potential negative connotations or cultural sensitivity issues. They also examine whether similar emoji already exist. Rejected proposals can be resubmitted with revisions, sometimes multiple times before acceptance.

Recent examples show this process in action. The "pregnant man" emoji (approved 2022) went through extensive review because it represented a shift in how gender and biology are portrayed. The "coral" emoji (approved 2020) filled a specific need for marine and environmental discussions. The "axe" emoji (approved 2018) resolved confusion about weapon representation across platforms.

Once approved by Unicode, each tech company creates its own visual design. Apple's emoji look different from Google's emoji, even though they represent the same character. This is intentional. Companies maintain their design identity while following Unicode's technical standards. This explains why the same emoji can appear slightly different depending on whether you're using iPhone, Android, Windows, or Mac.

The entire process from proposal to device availability typically takes two to three years. Some emoji have been proposed multiple times over five or more years before approval. Understanding this timeline explains why certain frequently requested emoji haven't appeared yet.

Practical takeaway: This guide details the approval steps and shows you real examples of emoji currently in the proposal pipeline, so you understand why certain characters may appear in the future.

Where to Find New Emoji on Your Device

New emoji are built into operating system updates. You don't retrieve them separately. Instead, when Apple releases iOS 18, Google releases Android 15, or Microsoft releases Windows 11 updates, the new emoji come as part of that package.

On iPhone and iPad, go to Settings, then General, then Software Update. If your device shows an available update, that update likely includes new emoji characters if you're upgrading to a major new version. Once you install the update, open any app where you type (Messages, Notes, Mail) and access your emoji keyboard. The newest characters typically appear at the end of relevant emoji categories.

On Android devices, the process varies by manufacturer. Samsung phones update through Settings > About phone > Software update. Google Pixel phones receive updates through Settings > System > System update. Other Android phones have similar paths. After updating, your emoji keyboard automatically includes new characters.

On Windows computers, new emoji arrive through Windows Update. Go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update and check for updates. On Mac computers, go to System Settings > General > Software Update. Once installed, you can access emoji through the Character Viewer on Mac (Control + Command + Space) or the emoji panel on Windows (Windows + period key).

The guide includes screenshots showing exactly where to find these settings on various devices and operating systems. It explains what to look for when checking whether your device has the latest emoji. It also covers troubleshooting if you expect to see new emoji but don't see them yet.

Practical takeaway: Use this guide's step-by-step instructions for your specific device to locate new emoji after you update your software.

Device-Specific Timing and Rollout Schedules

New emoji don't arrive on all devices simultaneously. This frustrates many users, but it reflects how technology companies operate independently. Unicode publishes the official standard, but each company manages its own schedule for design, testing, and release.

Apple typically leads emoji adoption. iPhone and iPad often receive new emoji in major iOS updates that arrive in September. In recent years, iOS 15, iOS 16, iOS 17, and iOS 18 each introduced new emoji. This aligns with Apple's annual product announcement schedule.

Google usually releases new emoji in Android updates. However, Google also uses Google Play Services to deliver emoji updates outside major Android releases. This means Android users may receive new emoji more flexibly than iOS users. Pixel phones often receive Google's own designs first, while other Android phones may see variations based on their manufacturer's timeline.

Microsoft Windows updates follow a different calendar entirely. Windows typically receives new emoji through major updates in spring and fall, though the timing doesn't always align with Apple's or Google's schedule. Users running older Windows versions may not receive new emoji at all, which explains why corporate environments sometimes lag behind in emoji availability.

Samsung, OnePlus, and other phone manufacturers add their own delays on top of Android's schedule. They must test emoji compatibility with their specific devices before releasing updates. This can add weeks or months to the time between Unicode approval and availability on those phones.

This guide contains a detailed timeline showing when each major tech platform released new emoji over the past five years. It helps you understand whether your particular device is typically an early adopter or receives updates more slowly.

Practical takeaway: Refer to this guide's device-specific timeline to understand when you might expect new emoji to appear on your particular phone, computer, or tablet.

Popular New Emoji From Recent Years

Recent emoji additions reflect changing communication needs and cultural moments. In 2023 and 2024, Unicode approved characters like face with bags under eyes, pink heart, shaking hands with different skin tones, and various animal designs. Each tells something about how people want to express themselves.

The "face with bags under eyes" emoji (2023) responded to conversations about fatigue, work stress, and mental health. Before this, people used tired face or weary face emoji, but neither perfectly captured that specific exhausted look. The new option gave precise communication for a common feeling.

Gender-inclusive emoji expanded significantly. Rainbow flag variants, kissing couple designs showing different combinations of genders, and family structures showing non-traditional arrangements all arrived in recent years. These additions reflected requests from LGBTQ+ communities and advocates who wanted emoji that represented their lives and relationships.

Skin tone modifiers for handshake emoji allow more nuanced representation. Previously, handshakes appeared in a single yellow tone. New versions let you select skin tones for both hands, enabling representation of multicultural families, interracial relationships, and diverse workplaces. Similar updates happened with other gesture emoji like waving hand, raising hand, and folded hands.

Regional and cultural emoji arrived too. Food emoji like goat, swan, and various fruits; activity emoji like skateboarding and climbing; and nature emoji like melting face and coral acknowledged different parts of the world and different activities people wanted to represent.

The guide shows visual examples of 50+ popular new emoji from the last five years, explains what each represents, and describes which devices received them first.

Practical takeaway: