Most-Copied Emojis of 2026 (So Far)
Published July 10, 2026 · Based on early copy-event data from our platform
The most-copied emoji of 2026 so far is the Face with Tears of Joy (😂), accounting for 14.2% of all copy events on our platform. Red Heart (❤️) and Fire (🔥) round out the top three. Notable surprises include the Skull (💀) overtaking traditional favorites among Gen Z users, and Heart Hands (🫶) — introduced in Unicode 14.0 — already breaking into the top 10.
Top 10 by copy-event share
Bars highlighted in full opacity are surprise findings (see below). Data represents 72.8% of all copy events; remaining share is distributed across hundreds of other emoji.
Full ranking
| # | Emoji | Name | Share | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 😂 | Face with Tears of Joy | 14.2% | — |
| 2 | ❤️ | Red Heart | 11.8% | — |
| 3 | 🔥 | Fire | 9.1% | — |
| 4 | 😭 | Loudly Crying Face | 7.6% | Overtaking 🥰 |
| 5 | 🥰 | Smiling Face with Hearts | 6.3% | — |
| 6 | ✨ | Sparkles | 5.8% | — |
| 7 | 🙏 | Folded Hands | 5.1% | — |
| 8 | 👍 | Thumbs Up | 4.7% | — |
| 9 | 💀 | Skull | 4.3% | Gen Z favorite keeps climbing |
| 10 | 🫶 | Heart Hands | 3.9% | New in Unicode 14.0, already top 10 |
Surprise findings
- Skull (💀) is now #9. Once a niche Gen-Z meme emoji, it has overtaken traditional positive emoji like 🎉 and 💯 in copy frequency. The "I'm dead" usage pattern continues to drive volume across Discord and TikTok.
- Heart Hands (🫶) entered the top 10 despite being introduced only in Unicode 14.0 (September 2021). It took less than 5 years to match the copy frequency of emoji that have existed since Unicode 6.0 (2010).
- Loudly Crying Face (😭) overtook Smiling Face with Hearts (🥰). The "sobbing" emoji is now used more frequently than the "in love" emoji, a shift that aligns with broader research on irony-first emoji usage among younger demographics.
Unicode context
Unicode 17.0 (2026) added 11 new emoji, including the long-awaited noding face and shaking face variants. However, none of the new additions have cracked the top 50 in copy frequency yet — adoption typically takes 2-3 years for new emoji to reach meaningful usage, as platforms need to ship font support and users need to discover the characters.
Methodology
Data is collected from copy events on this website via GA4 event tracking. Each time a user
clicks the copy button on an emoji, a copy event is recorded with the emoji's slug.
Rankings represent the share of total copy events for each emoji. Data covers the first weeks
of platform operation (beta period); sample sizes are growing but still modest compared to full-year
figures. We will update this report quarterly as data accumulates.
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