Nine emoji were approved on July 30, 2026 and published with Unicode 18.0 on September 16, 2026. Cracking Face topped Emojipedia's public vote, ahead of Pickle and Meteor. Here is what each one is, and when we expect it to reach your phone.
Several of the names read like emoji that already exist. They are not. Here is what each one depicts and what it sits next to.
| Emoji | Depicts | Distinct from | Public vote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cracking Face | A face mid-expression, cracking under strain or tension | Existing grimacing/strained-face emoji | #1 |
| Pickle | A whole pickle (gherkin) | ๐ Eggplant, ๐ฅ Cucumber | #2 |
| Meteor | A streaking meteor / fireball | โ๏ธ Comet | #3 |
| Monarch Butterfly | A monarch butterfly specifically | ๐ฆ Butterfly (generic species) | #4 |
| Lighthouse | A coastal lighthouse | Nothing close in the standard | #5 |
| Leftwards Thumb Sign | A thumb pointing left, for directional gestures | ๐ Thumbs Up, ๐ Thumbs Down | Not in top 5 |
| Rightwards Thumb Sign | A thumb pointing right, for directional gestures | ๐ Thumbs Up, ๐ Thumbs Down | Not in top 5 |
| Eraser | A pencil eraser | Nothing close in the standard | Not in top 5 |
| Net with Handle | A bug/butterfly net | Nothing close in the standard | Not in top 5 |
The two thumb signs also carry 10 skin-tone variants between them. Ranking is Emojipedia's public poll; Unicode does not rank candidates by popularity.
UTC Meeting #188 recommended no changes to the emoji repertoire on July 30, 2026, which locked all nine in, and Unicode 18.0 published them on September 16, 2026. That decision is covered in Unicode 18.0 Release Date Confirmed.
Approval is not the same as support. Publishing the standard tells every platform what the characters are, and each one then ships its own font before anything appears on a screen. Google has already published its designs in the Noto Color Emoji font, but as of September 25, 2026 no phone or computer shows them by default.
Until yours does, these nine show as empty boxes. That is a missing font rather than a broken character, as set out in why fonts show as boxes. For emoji that render everywhere today, our emoji combos library waits on nobody.
| Platform | Expected |
|---|---|
| January or February 2027 | |
| Samsung Galaxy | Around March 2027 |
| iPhone, iPad, Mac | March or April 2027 |
| Windows | Late 2027 or later |
| Android (Pixel) | Late 2027 at the earliest |
Our estimates from the Unicode 17.0 rollout, not platform announcements. Method below.
Unicode 17.0 published on September 9, 2025 and we tracked how long each platform took to draw its eight new emoji. Unicode 18.0 published almost exactly a year later, on September 16, 2026, so each measured gap maps straight onto this slate.
| Platform | Emoji 17.0 took |
|---|---|
| 4 to 5 months | |
| Samsung Galaxy | 5.5 months |
| iPhone, iPad, Mac | 6.5 months |
| Windows | 11.5 months, still rolling out |
| Android (Pixel) | Over 12 months, unfinished |
Based on how Emoji 17.0 rolled out, expect these nine on mainstream phones during 2027, our estimate from the pattern rather than a vendor announcement.
The two slow rows carry the most risk of moving. Windows only began a gradual public rollout of Emoji 17.0 on September 22, 2026, and Google's font was ready within a day while its own phones waited nearly a year, with Pixel 10 and earlier still waiting. Emojipedia's own estimate, also built on last year's schedule, is earlier for Google, with Android support starting in the first quarter of 2027. We replace an estimate here with a real date the day a platform ships one.
The Unicode Emoji Subcommittee drafted the slate in January 2026. Emojipedia then asked the public which candidate they were most looking forward to using. Cracking Face won, ahead of Pickle and Meteor, with Monarch Butterfly and Lighthouse behind them.
The pickle drew the loudest reaction. One widely shared comment on MacRumors ran "that pickle is going to break the internet." Others were tired of the whole exercise, asking whether there will "ever [be] a day in which the Unicode consortium decide that we have too many emojis."
Cracking Face, Pickle, Meteor, Monarch Butterfly and the Thumb Sign pair each have their own page here, with codepoint history and the emoji they get confused with.
Copy-paste aesthetic combinations across faces, food and nature. Nothing here waits on a font update.
Browse Emoji Combos โDraft list and repertoire context per the Unicode Consortium's official beta review announcement and symbl.cc. Public vote results and candidate history per Emojipedia's "Most Anticipated Emoji of 2026" report and Emojipedia's draft emoji list. Community reaction per MacRumors. The September 16, 2026 release is confirmed by the Unicode Consortium's Unicode 18.0 announcement, and Google's Noto Color Emoji designs and the 2027 estimates are in Emojipedia's Unicode 18.0 report. The September 22, 2026 Windows rollout is in Microsoft's KB5124010 release notes. The Emoji 17.0 platform gaps behind this page's estimates are sourced and dated on our own Unicode 17.0 rollout tracker, linked above.