Did you think six emoji reactions are not enough? Here’s some good news coming. The new versions of WhatsApp for Android and iOS now present their users with an opportunity to react to a message with literally any emoji from the keyboard. After the testing, these extended possibilities will be available to all the users globally.

The premise is simple: while now users can only choose an emoji reaction among those proposed, after the update, they will be able to access the entire variety of them present on the keyboard and supported by the platform. This remains a quick way to react but saves lots of words if the message does not require a substantial reply. Not only does it save your time, but it shortens the volumes of data for WhatsApp servers to process.

To add any emoji, you’ll need to tap the “+” button that appears after the proposed options and then choose from the entire roster. On iOS, there is a draggable emoji section that contains all the emojis supported by the system. On Android, the tap will open the keyboard in emoji mode. This is similar to how random-access emoji reactions work on Instagram.

It’s not clear whether WhatsApp will support avatar reactions like Instagram does now; if so, it would be logical for Meta to introduce Metaverse elements throughout its projects.

If you participate in WhatsApp beta testing program, you may try these new opportunities now. On Android, you need to update to WhatsApp beta 2.22.15.6 or above. On iOS, the minimum version is WhatsApp beta 22.14.0.71. It’s not clear yet when the testing phase will be over, and the new richness of emoji reactions will roll out globally to stable version users.

What do you think about expanded emoji reactions? Do you often react with emojis to messages or stories on Instagram and Messenger? Tell us what you think about it in the comments, even though we don’t support emoji reactions yet.