How To: Your iPhone Just Got 31 More Emoji — Here Are All the New Characters and Variations

We haven't seen an emoji update for iPhone since iOS 15.4, which gave us 112 new emoji characters, but that's finally changed with the release of iOS 16.4. Here are all the new emoji you get after installing the latest software update.

The new emoji have been a part of Unicode 15.0 since Sept. 13, 2022, but it's taken Apple a long time to finally implement them into the iOS keyboard. There are 21 new emoji, and two have five additional skin tone variations, making it 31 new emoji altogether. Some highlights include a shaking face, pink heart, jellyfish, hair pick, pea pod, ginseng, hyacinth flower, and wing.

Perhaps the most exciting emoji additions are the leftward and rightward pushing hand characters because you can put them together into a high-five pose. Even better, you can add another emoji inside them, such as an explosion or eye, to create a dramatic effect.

All the new emoji, which are available starting with iOS 16.4, iPadOS 16.4, and macOS 13.3, released on March 27, can be seen in the below chart. Note that the iOS keyboard originally was missing the ten skin-tone variations for the leftward and rightward pushing hands, but a subsequent iOS update addressed the issue.

Smileys & People (13 total)
🫷 - leftward pushing hand
🫸 - rightward pushing hand
🫷🏻 - leftward pushing hand with light skin tone
🫸🏻 - rightward pushing hand with light skin tone
🫷🏼 - leftward pushing hand with medium light skin tone
🫸🏼 - rightward pushing hand with medium light skin tone
🫷🏽 - leftward pushing hand with medium skin tone
🫸🏽 - rightward pushing hand with medium skin tone
🫷🏾 - leftward pushing hand with medium dark skin tone
🫸🏾 - rightward pushing hand with medium dark skin tone
🫷🏿 - leftward pushing hand with dark skin tone
🫸🏿 - rightward pushing hand with dark skin tone
🫨 - shaking face

Animals & Nature (7 total)
🐦‍⬛ - black bird
🫏 - donkey
🪿 - goose
🪻 - hyacinth (flower)
🪼 - jellyfish
🫎 - moose (face)
🪽 - wing

Food & Drink (2 total)
🫚 - ginger
🫛 - pea pod

Activity (2 total)
🪈 - flute
🪇 - maracas

Objects (2 total)
🪭 - folding hand fan
🪮 - hair pick

Symbols (5 total)
🩶 - gray heart
🪯 - khanda (sword and shield symbol)
🩵 - light blue heart
🩷 - pink heart
🛜 - wireless (network signal)