Android Messages for web supports Hangouts’ kaomoji shortcuts, here’s how to use them

Abner Li | Jun 28 2018 - 10:21 am PT

Announced last week, Android Messages for web is now fully rolled out to all users that want to send text messages from a desktop. In addition to quick access to emoji and stickers, Messages for web supports sending kaomoji through convenient shortcuts that should be very familiar to Hangouts users.

Japanese emoticons are a popular form of expression that cleverly leverages punctuation, spacing, and various characters to make faces and convey other feelings. However, they are a pain to type out manually given that many of the keyboard characters are not easily accessible, even on mobile.

Fortunately in Hangouts and now Messages for web, users can just enter a forward slash “/” followed by a descriptor. Featured kaomoji include /algebraic, /tableflip, and as Duo head Justin Uberti noted last night /praisethesun.

These commands only work at the beginning of a message and support is limited to the new Messages for web client. In comparison, kaomoji shortcuts work on both Hangouts for Android and the web. Regardless, hopefully they come to other communication services, like Google Voice.

A list of commands compiled by The Verge and Reddit are available below:

/shrug	¯\_(ツ)_/¯	/wizard	∩ ` -´)⊃━━☆ﾟ.*･｡ﾟ
/algebraic	\| ( •◡•)\| (❍ᴥ❍ʋ)	/this	☜(ﾟヮﾟ☜)
/dealwithit /sunglasses	( •_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■)	/that	(☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞
/disapprove	ಠ_ಠ	/tableflip	(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
/facepalm	(－‸ლ)	/tableback	┬─┬ ノ( ゜-゜ノ)
/happy	ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ	/praisethesun	\`[-\|-]/
/success	(•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑	/yuno	ლ(ಠ益ಠლ