You can now react using any emoji in Google Messages

Google has made significant progress in making the Messages app a serious rival to Apple’s iMessage. After months of limited testing, the company added emoji replies to Messages in July 2020, albeit these emojis are not yet attractively shown on iOS devices. While Google found a way around this discrepancy last year, Android users continue to be frustrated by Apple’s refusal to offer RCS chats on iMessage. Another annoying limitation is that there are only seven available emoji reactions in Google Messages. However, this seems to be improving as the software removes this restriction.

As per reports from 9to5Google, Google Messages is progressively rolling out the option to select any emoji when responding to a message. The thumbs-down emoji was changed to a shortcut to an emoji picker in beta testing of this feature back in November. Finally, this feature is now operational on the stable channel. Some Reddit users discovered this potential a few days ago.

In the past, you could only send an emoji from a basic set of seven, which included and By long-pressing on an SMS text or RCS chat and clicking the new emoji icon with a “plus” symbol next to “thumbs-down,” you will now be able to see a wide variety of emoji reactions. Emojis are divided into ten categories, and if you’re looking for a particular one, a search area is located at the top of the picker. Below the search bar, you can see a list of all the most recent emojis you’ve used.

Assuming both you and the recipient are using Google Messages, an emoji reaction appears as usual in the bottom-right corner of a message. However, users of iMessage will only see a simple icon in place of the actual emoji.

Although many Android users have been waiting for it, the problems with messaging friends who have iPhones are still present. You now have access to the entire range of emoji reactions that many of the top messaging apps have had for a while.