Gmail, Google’s popular email client, has been getting updates and new features to make the app more user-friendly. Now, Gmail could soon be getting a new emoji reaction feature on both iOS and Android that will let users react to emails using emojis. This feature is similar to the one that already exists on Microsoft Outlook. According to a new report, the feature will add an emoji button on the right side of the email next to the three-dot options menu. This icon will let users select from a list of available emojis to quickly react to an email.
According to a report by AssembleDebug on TheSpAndroid blog, the emoji reactions feature could be getting ready to roll out soon. AssembleDebug was able to access the feature on the Gmail app on Android and provide a detailed look at what’s possible.
The new emoji react button in Gmail, when tapped for the first time, will reportedly show a tip on the feature from Google. “Respond quickly and add personality – Gmail users see your reaction in the original message. Others will receive it as a reply email,” the tip reads. This tells us that people who don’t use the native Gmail app on phones will receive emoji reactions to their email as separate email replies instead of as reactions on the same email.
After tapping the emoji reaction icon, users will get a preset list of five emojis to select and quickly react to the email. There’s also a ‘+’ button in the list, which lets users access the entire emoji library to select how they want to react to the mail. According to the report, users can choose between three possible ways to send an emoji reaction to an email. This includes the emoji icon next to the three-dot menu, an ‘add reaction’ option within the three-dot menu itself, and another emoji button at the bottom of the email next to Reply, Reply All, and Forward buttons.
Users could also possibly react to emails by tapping on emojis that people have already used to react to the same email before them, the report said. While Gmail users on iOS and Android will natively support emoji reactions within the app, with the reactions showing up on the parent email, people who use other email clients will reportedly receive each emoji reaction as a separate reply to the initial email. It is not yet clear if the feature is coming to the Web version of Gmail alongside the rollout on phones.
Back in June, Google started rolling out its AI-powered ‘Help Me Write’ feature to Workspace Labs testers on Gmail for Android and iOS. The feature aids in drafting an email based on prompts provided by the user. The search engine giant announced the ‘Help Me Write’ feature at its annual Google I/O 2023 event in May, alongside a host of new AI tools.