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Your workplace chats may soon become a lot more interesting thanks to a new update coming to Google Workspace.
The company’s Google Chat service now allows users to create and use their own custom emojis for use in your personal and business conversations.
Whether it’s your cutest pet, a favorite snack at the office, or just a random prank that only you and your coworkers will get, the chat software now offers maximum creative possibilities for emoji fans.
Google Chat Custom Emojis
Google says the addition of custom emojis was one of the top feature requests, and the service is already available in competing online collaboration services like Slack.
“Emojis are a great way for people to express themselves in Google Chat,” the company wrote in a Google Workspace update. blog (opens in new tab). “We’re excited to announce that we’re making emojis even more expressive and personal by allowing people to create custom emojis.”
Users can create custom emojis in the web versions of Chat or Gmail by going to the ‘Create’ button in the emoji picker. There you can upload an image of your choice and give it a descriptive name, then use your custom emoji when sending or responding to messages in Chat.
Once created, anyone in an organization can view and use custom emojis uploaded by their colleagues in chat messages and comments. However, custom emojis are not available when talking to guests or external participants.
And to make sure nothing objectionable creeps in, administrators can set organizational guidelines and assign emoji managers who can search and delete custom emojis that may not meet company guidelines.
Custom emojis will roll out to all Google Workspace customers on November 8, as well as older G Suite Basic and Business customers, but users with personal Google accounts won’t be able to use the service.
The move comes shortly after a new Google Docs update allowed users to search and insert emojis directly inline with the text. Now users just need to type in “@” followed by the term, emotion, object, or whatever they need to open a pop-up menu of emojis.