Your iPhone Finally Has New Emoji — Meet All the New Characters in iOS 18.4

The last emoji refresh for iPhone was over a year ago, but thanks to the Unicode 16.0 update, a new wave of fun and expressive characters just hit your Apple devices, bringing fresh glyphs to your keyboard.

The previous emoji update for iPhone arrived in March 2024 with iOS 17.4, adding highlights like the phoenix (🐦‍🔥), lime wedge (🍋‍🟩), and head-shaking faces (🙂‍↔️🙂‍↕️) from Unicode 15.1. This time, the Unicode 16.0 batch, available on iOS 18.4 and released on March 31, provides a mix of practical icons, playful symbols, and cultural additions to keep your messages vibrant.

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Unicode 16.0 introduced seven new emoji characters that represent a variety of emotions, themes, and everyday scenarios. These include Face with Bags Under Eyes, Fingerprint, Harp, Splatter, Root Vegetable, Leafless Tree, and Shovel. An eighth emoji, Flag of Sark, is also included in Emoji 16.0 but not Unicode 16.0 because Unicode no longer accepts flag proposals.

The full lineup and details are below. If you can't see the new emoji, your device cannot yet display the new Emoji 16.0 characters. But you can still see what they look like in the image above. Apple devices running at least iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4 should be able to display these emoji just fine.

Smileys and Emotion (1 total)

• 🫩 Face with Bags Under Eyes: The ultimate emoji for conveying tiredness.

People and Body (1 total)

• 🫆 Fingerprint: A versatile symbol for identity, security, or individuality.

Animals and Nature (1 total)

• 🪾 Leafless Tree: Perfect for seasonal chats or metaphors about change and growth.

Food and Drink (1 total)

• 🫜 Root Vegetable: Representing turnips, radishes, or other root crops.

Objects (2 total)

• 🪉 Harp: A musical emoji for conversations about tradition or creativity.

• 🪏 Shovel: From gardening to digging into projects.

Symbols (1 total)

• 🫟 Splatter: A bold and abstract purple splat that sparks curiosity and imagination.

Flags (1 total)

• 🇨🇶 Flag of Sark: This flag adds a touch of geographic diversity, representing the Channel Island of Sark.

If you're not running the latest iOS version, you might see placeholders or, for Flag of Sark, the grouped regional indicator letters "CQ" instead.

The Unicode 16.0 emojis will continue to be adopted by major platforms throughout 2025. These emoji have already rolled out across Apple devices with iOS 18.4, iPadOS 18.4, and macOS Sequoia 15.4. They will also become available on Android devices with Android 16; Samsung devices with One UI 7; Windows PCs with the 2025 Windows 11 update; and popular platforms like Gmail, ChromeOS, and YouTube following Google's Noto Color Emoji update.

There is already speculation about the emoji coming with Unicode 17.0, with characters like Treasure Chest and Trombone. However, following Apple's usual schedule, those emoji likely won't appear on iPhones until spring 2026 with iOS 19.4.

Before the spring 2025 update, Apple issued new emoji packs to iPhone in iOS 17.4 in March 2024, iOS 16.4 in March 2023, and iOS 15.4 in March 2024.

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Cover photo and screenshots by Gadget Hacks.