Emojis have immensely changed the way we express ourselves when texting or chatting on our smartphones. These small pictorial icons help us to add emotions to a chat or conversation, making it fun and interesting. Today, most Android phones have pre-installed emojis, but there are several ways for android users to enable and use this feature on their device. In this post, we will look at how to insert and add more emojis on in Android phones to improve your chatting experience.
Does My Phone Support Emojis?
Majority of the Android devices in the market today have pre-installed emojis or at least support the feature. Any device running on Android 4.1 or a later version has a set of stock emojis. Moreover, even if your phone has an older Android version, you can install third-party keyboards or apps that recognize emojis such as WhatsApp.
- To check your Android version, open the phone settings app and scroll down and tap “About” (mostly the last option) under the system settings.
- Under the “Android version” heading you will see a number (4.2, 5.0, 7.0 and so on). This represents the OS version.
Activate and Configure the Emoji Keyboard
Sometimes, your default keyboard may not include emojis even if your device supports them.
- To change your default keyboard, open the device settings and tap the “Languages & input” settings.
- Under the “Keyboard and input methods” section, press “Virtual keyboard” and then tap “Manage keyboards” on the resulting page.
- This will display a list of keyboards available on your device. For Android 4.4 or later devices, the Google Keyboard or Gboard is the default keyboard.
- Ensure that the “Gboard” option is enabled.
Configuring the Keyboard
- Go back to the active/default keyboard page, tab the keyboard to configure the settings and press the “Advanced” option.
- Switch on the “Emoji with the physical keyboard” feature.
- Now you will see a smiley face on your keyboard on the right side of the space bar when composing a message or typing on your device.
Inserting Emojis When Typing on Your Android Phone
There are several ways of inserting emojis when typing on your Android device.
Using Emoji Shortcuts
Google keyboard allows you to use shortcuts for English words to insert emojis. You can also add custom shortcuts for emojis in the keyboard personal dictionary settings.
- Open the messaging app and click the icon to compose a new message.
- Type the shortcut word and tap the corresponding emoji from the keyboard suggestions.
Using Smiley Icon on Keyboard
- Press the smiley icon on the keyboard to access the emojis. You will see a set of emojis arranged in categories starting from the recently used (clock icon) to the flags category.
- Swipe left/right to look for the emoji you want or tap the icon for a given category to select an icon.
- Tap on an emoji to add it to your conversation. For some options, you can long-press the emoji to select the color tone.
Search and Insert Emoticons
- Tap the search box and type the word for which you want to represent with an emoji and then tap the matching icon from the results.
- You may also search by sketching the emoji you want to insert. To do so, press the pen on the right edge of the search box.
- Draw your sketch on the space provided and then select the matching icon from the results.
Using the Emoji Short Code
Every emoji has a unique short cord in text format. You can just type the short code to add an emoji.
- To access the emoji short codes, press the smiley button on the keyboard and then tap the short-code icon (next to the GIF icon).
- This will display the codes for the various emojis.
Adding Third-Party Emoji Keyboards
Some third-party apps offer more emoji options in terms of quantity and style even for devices that do not support the emoji feature. You can download and install a third-party emoji keyboard apps from the Google Play Store to access more options. Some of the recommended keyboard apps for emojis include:
Kika Keyboard
The app provides access to over 3,000 emojis, emoticons and animated GIFs. Moreover, it has an emoji prediction feature and a dictionary to help you understand the meaning of the icons. If you want to use more emojis than your default keyboard can offer, download the Kika Keyboard app from Play Store for free.
SwiftKey Keyboard
SwiftKey is another advanced emoji icon keyboard with features such as A.I predictions to provide suggestions on which emojis you are likely to use on different situations.
Textra Keyboard
Textra keyboard app allows you to choose between the Emoji One, iOS, Twitter and Android emoji styles but you may have to replace your default text application with Textra.
Summary
Without emojis, text conversations would be flat and boring. Whether you use the device default keyboard, pre-installed emoji add-ons or third-part emoji keyboards, there are several ways of accessing and using these colorful icons to express your feelings when texting on your Android device. The above guiding steps show you how to add and configure emoji keyboards as well as how to insert emojis when typing in Android phone.
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