Did you know that Gmail has emoji reactions?

Google has rolled out emoji interactions to personal Gmail accounts A little over two years agoand I’ve completely forgotten about it until now – probably because the option is hidden inside a little smiley face icon next to it forward button. But now, Google offers emoji interactions To all Workspace users virtually on February 9th, to remind me of their presence (and all the time I could have responded with a “thumbs up” instead of a full message).

Selecting the blurred smiley button displays a set of emojis that you can use in place of a typed response. If the recipient is another Gmail user, they’ll see your reaction at the bottom of the email, as well as seeing the emoji as an update to the thread in their inbox. People who use other email providers — or if they have emoji interactions disabled — will receive a separate email saying you’ve “interacted via Gmail.” Google has introduced emoji reactions as an opt-in feature Workspace users last Aprilso you may have seen it attached to your work email before this announcement.

Additionally, emails sent to multiple people will show how many people interacted with the message and which emoji they interacted with. You can also hover your mouse over each interaction to see where it came from. like Google noticedyou won’t see the emoji reaction option for all emails, including if the message was sent to a group email list, if there are more than 20 recipients, or if you “already sent more than 20 reactions for the same message” (lol).

Now that I know this feature exists again, I’m still not sure I’ll use it. Choosing an emoji might be easier than saying “thank you,” but I’m not sure I’m ready to make my emails look like my text messages.