Kaomoji Copy and Paste: Japanese Emoticons and Text Faces by Mood

Japanese text faces, sorted by mood so the one you want is a tap away. Every face is plain text: tap to copy it, or tap several to build a line and copy that. Below the keyboard: what kaomoji are, how to type them without this page, and where they render.

Kaomoji by mood

Tap a face to copy it. Tap several to collect a line, then copy the line or send it to the generator.

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Open in generator

571 kaomoji in 20 groups. Tap to copy.Copied ✦

What kaomoji are, and how they differ from emoticons and emoji

Kaomoji (顔文字, "face characters") are faces drawn from text and read upright. A Western emoticon like :-) is read sideways and uses a handful of ASCII characters; a kaomoji like (◕‿◕) or ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ is read the right way up and can use any character in Unicode, which is why they are so much more expressive. They grew up on Japanese bulletin boards in the late 1980s and 1990s, where full-width and double-byte characters were normal and a (^_^) cost nothing to type, and spread with anime forums and later Twitter. Emoji are different again: an emoji is one character that the platform draws as a coloured picture in its own style, so 😊 looks different on iPhone and Android, while a kaomoji is drawn by the font, in the text colour, and looks the same everywhere its characters render.

The faces borrow letters from a dozen writing systems for their parts. The shrug’s face is the katakana ツ (tsu); ノ (no) is an arm; ಠ_ಠ and ಥ_ಥ are Kannada letters; the bear’s snout ᴥ is a phonetic symbol; ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ is Canadian Aboriginal syllabics; the sparkle-thrower’s hand ﾉ is half-width katakana. Because they are letters, any font that covers those scripts draws them, and every phone and computer sold this decade covers all of them. The one thing to watch is spacing: a face built from five scripts is drawn by five fonts, so its proportions shift slightly between devices.

Happy, cute, sad, crying, angry: the 20 moods on this page

The groups follow what people search for: happy and cute faces first, then love and hearts, sad, crying, angry, the table flip, the shrug, and the animals (cat, bear, bunny, dog), then sparkles and stars, blushing, kissing and hugging, thumbs up and waving, excited and laughing, sleepy, the Lenny face and the other memes, and flowers and music. Each group has a fixed order, so a face you found once is where you left it. The library has over five hundred faces and no duplicates within a group; the symbols page borrows six of these groups so both pages read the same list.

Tap a face to copy it. On the page, a tap also adds it to the collection tray at the top, so you can build a line like ✧ (◕‿◕) ✧ or a signature and copy the whole thing; Open in generator sends the line to the font generator, which styles any words between the faces and leaves the faces alone. Everything runs in your browser; nothing you tap is sent anywhere.

How to type kaomoji on iPhone, Android and Windows without a website

Every major system has a kaomoji keyboard, and it is faster than a website once you know where it is. On iPhone and iPad, add the Japanese (Kana) keyboard under Settings › General › Keyboard; on that keyboard the ^_^ key opens a list of faces, and you can switch back to your usual keyboard with the globe key. On Windows 10 and 11, press Win + . (the period key) to open the emoji panel, which has a Kaomoji tab beside Emoji and Symbols. Gboard on Android has a kaomoji tab inside the emoji panel, the :-) icon at the bottom. macOS has no built-in kaomoji list, only the character viewer, so on a Mac this page is the shortcut. The table below the keyboard repeats these so you can copy it with the faces.

Kaomoji keyboard, per device

Where each system keeps its own list of faces, so you do not need this page every time.

iPhone and iPad: Settings › General › Keyboard › Keyboards › Add New Keyboard › Japanese (Kana). On that keyboard, the ^_^ key opens a kaomoji list.
Windows 10 and 11: Press Win + . (period) for the emoji panel and choose the Kaomoji tab.
Android (Gboard): Open the emoji panel from the keyboard and switch to the kaomoji tab, the :-) icon at the bottom.
Mac: Control + Command + Space opens the character viewer; kaomoji are not built in, so paste from here.

Kaomoji questions

What is the difference between kaomoji and emoticons?

Both are faces made of text. Emoticons (:-) ;-P) are read sideways and use only ASCII; kaomoji ((◕‿◕) ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ) are read upright and use characters from any script, which allows eyes, mouths, arms and props. Emoji (😊) are single characters drawn as pictures by the platform and look different on each one.

How do I get a kaomoji keyboard on my phone?

iPhone: add the Japanese (Kana) keyboard in Settings › General › Keyboard, then tap its ^_^ key. Android with Gboard: open the emoji panel and choose the kaomoji tab. Both give a few hundred faces; this page has more, sorted by mood, and works on a Mac, which has no built-in list.

Why does a kaomoji look wrong or show boxes after I paste it?

The face uses a character the receiving device has no font for, or the destination changed the spacing. Every current phone and computer has the scripts used here (katakana, Kannada, Latin phonetic symbols), so boxes mostly mean an old device. Spacing shifts because each script is drawn by a different font; a face built from fewer scripts, like (^_^) or (T_T), survives anywhere.

Can I use kaomoji in a Discord name, an Instagram bio or a Roblox display name?

In display names, bios and messages, yes. In an @username, no: those fields take letters, digits and a little punctuation. Roblox display names allow only letters and digits, so a kaomoji will be refused there; Discord display names and server nicknames accept them.

What does ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ mean, and how do I type it?

It is the shrug: arms up, palms out, a face that says "no idea". The face is the katakana letter ツ (tsu). Typing it by hand means switching keyboards for the ツ and the macrons, so most people copy it; it is in the Shrug group above. On a Mac it is quickest as a text replacement in System Settings › Keyboard.

Are kaomoji safe to use in a professional message?

They are text, so they will not break anything, and a (^_^) or a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ is common in chat at work. Screen readers read the characters one by one, which is noisy, so keep them out of anything that has to be read aloud, and out of email subject lines, which some clients strip of non-Latin characters.