With Slack, you can make an emoji for any situation.
Slack
You don’t just use the Slack productivity app on your desktop and phone to chat with coworkers, you practically live on it. Power users might squeeze every last bit out of Slack, but one of the app’s most enjoyable Easter eggs is the ability to create custom emoji to go with the 2,000-plus emoji that are already in there. Big whoop, right? But trust me, start making and using custom emojis and your Slack cred will soar.
Emoji have taken over society as a language all their own, inspiring everything from Apple’s Memoji avatars to a dedicated Emoji Movie with appalling ratings. And new emoji are added every year.
Making a new emoji for Slack is easy and addictive. Add this skill to your arsenal to show off how much better you are at Slack than your coworkers 😉.
Look at all those Slack emojis.
Shelby Brown/CNET
Who can make a Slack emoji?
All Slack members can make emoji, but not Slack guests. It’s available on Free, Standard, Plus and Enterprise Grid plans.
Can I make a Slack emoji on the mobile app?
You can’t make custom emoji from your phone, unfortunately, but you can access the custom emoji you made on the desktop from mobile. Your emoji will be sandwiched by two colon punctuation signs, so to conjure it on mobile bookend the name with the colons (i.e. :cat:)
Slack also notes that some workspaces won’t let you make custom emojis. I know, it’s a bummer. If you’re not sure, you can contact your workspace or org owner.
Here’s how to make a custom emoji on the Slack desktop app:
1. Open Slack
2. Click your workspace name in the top left corner
3. Click Customize Slack
4. Click Add Custom Emoji
5. Upload an image and name it
6. Click save
Here’s what you should see when you start to make your emoji.
Screenshot by Shelby Brown/CNET
How to make a good quality Slack emoji
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but you should make sure you’re using a JPG, GIF or PNG file. You’ll get the best results with a small, square picture. Slack will resize it automatically.
What to do with a Slack emoji once it’s live
A well-placed emoji can spice up your work conversations and let you react to activity. Some are almost memeworthy. Sprinkle them into responses in conversation, and add as a reaction to a message in one of your channels.
If anyone made an emoji like yours, you’ll see it when you search.
Shelby Brown/CNET
Search for a custom emoji
You can go back in after you’ve made the emoji and search for it by name. You don’t need to add the colons to search for your emoji. You can also scroll through everyone else’s creations for inspiration.
Delete your Slack emoji
Don’t worry. If you messed up, it’s not there forever. Simply click the “X” to get rid of your Slackmoji. You can’t get rid of anyone else’s though. If there’s a particularly inappropriate emoji, Slack says you can contact an administrator to have it removed.
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Originally posted June 12. Update, June 17 at 3 a.m. PT: Edited for clarity.