# Emoji picker for social media

Search by name or keyword, such as fire, party or thumbs up, or browse a category, then click an emoji to copy it. Every emoji here is from Emoji 15.1 or older, so it shows on current phones, and the ones you copy stay under Recently copied.

## Finding the right emoji

Search looks at the official Unicode name first and then at the keywords people use for it. An exact name wins, so fire gives the fire emoji first, then names that contain the word, such as fire engine and fireworks, and then emoji tagged with it. Shorter names come first, so heart starts with the plain colored hearts. Pick a category to browse, or to narrow a search to faces, food, flags or symbols.

## Emoji in social posts

An emoji at the start of a line works like a bullet point and makes a caption easier to scan. One or two per post is plenty for most brands; a row of emoji is hard to read and screen readers read each one out by its name. Emoji also count toward the character limit: X counts most of them as two characters, so a post near the limit can go over.

## Why some emoji are missing

Every year Unicode adds new emoji, but a phone only shows the ones its system font knows. This picker stops at Emoji 15.1 from 2023, so whatever you copy shows up on the phones your followers use today. When your post is ready, paste it into PostBoost to schedule it to all your networks at once.

## How to use

1. Type a word in the search box, such as heart or party, or pick a category.
2. Click an emoji, or move to it with Tab and press Enter, to copy it.
3. Paste it into your post with Ctrl+V or Cmd+V.
4. Find the emoji you used before under Recently copied.

## FAQ

### How do I copy and paste an emoji?

Click it. The emoji goes to your clipboard and the line under the grid says Copied. Then paste it into your post, caption or comment as you paste any text. With a keyboard, move to the emoji with Tab and press Enter.

### Why doesn't an emoji show on some phones?

A phone shows an emoji only if its system font has it. New emoji arrive every year and older phones never get them, so this picker only lists emoji from Emoji 15.1 (2023) or older. Newer ones show as an empty box on many devices.

### Where do the names and keywords come from?

From Unicode: the names and categories are from Unicode's emoji-test.txt list and the search keywords from the English annotations in the Unicode CLDR project, so fire also finds flame and hot.

### Do emoji count toward the character limit?

Yes. Most emoji count as 2 characters on X, and flags, skin tones and family emoji are made of several code points. Check the length of your post with the social media character counter before you publish.

### Are skin tones supported?

The picker shows the default yellow emoji. On most phones you can long-press an emoji in the keyboard to pick a skin tone; a skin tone picker is not part of this tool yet.

### Is anything I search sent anywhere?

No. The emoji list loads once with the page and the search runs in your browser. Recently copied emoji are kept in your browser's local storage and never sent to PostBoost.

## Related

- [Instagram font generator: copy and paste fancy text](https://postboost.co/tools/fancy-text-generator): Turn text into bold, italic, script, fraktur, monospace, small caps, circled and more Unicode styles and copy it into a bio or post. Free, in your browser.
- [Social media character counter](https://postboost.co/tools/social-media-character-counter): Free character counter for X, Threads, Bluesky, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and more. Counts as each network does, live in your browser.
- [Instagram line break generator](https://postboost.co/tools/instagram-line-break-generator): Add line breaks to Instagram captions that stay: each blank line gets an invisible spacer, line-end spaces go and the 2,200 limit is counted. Free.
- [Post editor](https://postboost.co/features/editor): Write once, adjust per account, preview it the way each network shows it and pick the format: Reel, Story, thread, offer, board or privacy.

Last verified: 2026-10-16

## Sources

- [Unicode: emoji-test.txt (emoji names, groups and versions)](https://unicode.org/Public/emoji/latest/emoji-test.txt)
- [Unicode CLDR: annotations (emoji names and keywords), CLDR JSON 48.2.3](https://github.com/unicode-org/cldr-json)
- [Unicode License v3](https://www.unicode.org/license.txt)
- [unicode-emoji-json 0.9.0 (MIT)](https://github.com/muan/unicode-emoji-json)

Canonical: https://postboost.co/tools/social-media-emoji-picker