Google works on giving Gmail users the ability to respond to emails with a single emoji on iOS And Android Phones.
Rumors about emoji responses on Gmail have been circulating for several weeks, though: outside of a few screenshotswe had not seen him in action until recently. Industry insider AssembleDebug managed to get the feature working on their Android device and shared their findings on TheSpAndroid Blog.
According to the report, a new button will appear “to the right of the email” next to the three-dot menu. Tapping it will open a small menu where you can choose from five default emojis: a sparkling heart, a party popper, a thumbs up, a smiling face, the praying hands (which people use to say thank you), as well as your run-of-the-mill smiley. Once selected, that emoji will appear in a comment bar below the message, like you see on messaging platforms.
TheSpAndroid states that there will be two other places “where you can respond to an email.” There will be an Add Reply option in the three-dot menu, plus an additional button at the bottom of an email next to Reply, Reply All and Forward.
This feature will reportedly work on email threads with multiple people participating. They explain that “it may be possible to respond by simply tapping the emojis that someone else has previously added. Naturally, users can send any emoji they want by tapping the Plus symbol in the small window that appears. You have the entire library at your disposal.
Limits
As nice as this update may sound, there are several limitations present, especially one that could potentially ruin the experience.
If other people don’t use the official mobile app, they will receive the emoji reactions in separate emails. Imagine sending an email to a group of people and getting spammed with multiple “emails with emoji reactions”. Not fun. It’s important to note that the browser version of Gmail may not have the new emoji support.
It seems that Google is aware of the spam problem, as users are not allowed to respond to emails sent to a large group. So there are some measures, but these will probably not be enough to stop spam. Also, you can’t send emojis to encrypted emails or messages you receive via BCC. The comment limit is limited to 20 for one person. In a group, the limit is increased to 50 for everyone.
It is unknown when this update will roll out. However, AssembleDebug claims that this will most likely happen sometime this month and “in batches.” If this comes to fruition, we hope that Google will release a version for browsers soon after or install additional preventative measures to slow down the spam.
Gmail is a widely used service, but its security features can be quite lacking. For more options, check out TechRadar’s list of the most secure email providers for 2023.