About EmojiCanvas
EmojiCanvas is a place to find an emoji, check what it means, and copy it without hopping between tabs. Every emoji in the Unicode Standard is organized by category, and each one has its name, keywords, code points and shortcode alongside three designs side by side: Google Noto, Twemoji and Microsoft Fluent. The site is available in Korean, English and Japanese.
Why it exists
The same emoji can look different on the sender’s and the receiver’s phone, and it can mean something different depending on the country and the generation reading it. 😂 is the default laugh for some people and a “dad emoji” for others. We wanted a place to check that kind of thing before picking an emoji from the keyboard.
How the explanations are written
Frequently used emoji get a “Meaning and usage” article written specifically for this site. Nothing is copied from other emoji dictionaries; each article is written fresh around four questions:
- How the emoji is actually used in conversation, and in which situations
- How its nuance differs between Korean, Japanese and English-speaking users
- Where it tends to be misread, and how to avoid that
- How its design differs across Apple, Google, Samsung and other platforms
Articles draw on public Unicode documents, each platform’s published material and real-world usage. If you spot a mistake or a missing nuance, please tell us through the contact page and we will check and fix it.
Data sources
Emoji names, keywords and translations in 26 languages come from Unicode CLDR and Emojibase. Images are taken unmodified from open-licensed emoji sets that allow commercial use; details are on the sources and licenses page. EmojiCanvas is an independent site run by an individual and is not affiliated with Google, Apple, Microsoft or the Unicode Consortium.
Running costs
EmojiCanvas is free to use and requires no account. Hosting costs are covered by advertising shown on the pages; see the privacy policy for how ads and cookies work.