Kaomoji Picker
Pick a mood, or search for happy, shrug, cat or sleepy, and click a kaomoji to copy it — ready to paste into a chat, a comment or a document. The faces are a curated, classroom-safe selection of Japanese-style emoticons, sorted by feeling. Free, no sign-up.
Kaomoji
198 kaomoji · Click or tap a kaomoji to copy it.
Kaomoji are plain text, so they paste anywhere. A font that lacks one of the characters may show a box or shift the face.
How to Use the Kaomoji Picker
- 1. Browse by mood. The pills filter the list to happy, love, celebrate, hello, thanks, cool, animals, shy, surprised, confused, thinking, shrug, nervous, sleepy, sad and annoyed faces.
- 2. Or search. Type a word such as happy, cat, bow or table flip. Each word you type must match the start of a mood word or a face name.
- 3. Click to copy. Clicking or tapping a kaomoji puts it on your clipboard and shows it larger above the list, so you can check that it displays properly.
- 4. Paste it. Kaomoji are plain text, so they paste into messages, comments, documents, bios and file names that accept Unicode.
- 5. Feeling lucky? Copy a random kaomoji picks one from the faces that match your mood and search.
What Kaomoji Are
Kaomoji (顔文字) means face characters in Japanese. Western emoticons such as :-) are written sideways, so you tilt your head to read them. Kaomoji are written upright, and they use the eyes as well as the mouth: (^_^) is a smile, (T_T) is crying, and (⊙_⊙) is surprise. Because Japanese text is typed with a large character set, kaomoji borrow from it — katakana, Greek and Cyrillic letters, box-drawing lines and symbols — to build arms, cheeks, blushes and whole bodies. Japanese online communities were using them by the late 1980s, long before graphic emoji reached phones.
The most famous kaomoji outside Japan is the shrug, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Its face is the katakana character ツ (tsu), which happens to look like a smiling face with two eyes and a mouth. The table flip, (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻, and its answer, ┬─┬ノ( º _ ºノ), are in the annoyed section.
Kaomoji or Emoji?
| Kaomoji | Emoji | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A string of ordinary characters | A single character or sequence from the Unicode emoji set |
| Looks the same everywhere? | Mostly, but missing fonts can show boxes | No — each platform draws its own design |
| Screen readers | Read out each symbol, which can be long | Read one short name, such as grinning face |
| Best for | Personality, chat, bios, older platforms | Quick, widely understood reactions |
To find an emoji by name or keyword, use the Emoji Search.
Tips for Using Kaomoji
- Check the preview. The copied face appears large above the list. If you see boxes, your font is missing a character; try another face or another font.
- Mind the audience. Kaomoji suit casual chat. In an essay, a report or a message to a teacher or editor, leave them out.
- Think about accessibility. A screen reader may read every character of a long kaomoji aloud. Use them sparingly, and put the main message in words.
- Backslashes in some apps. In chat apps that use Markdown, such as Discord, a backslash before an underscore can disappear. If a shrug loses its arm, add another backslash before the underscore.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How do I copy and paste a kaomoji?
- Click or tap the face in the list. It is copied to your clipboard, and a confirmation appears. Then paste it with Ctrl+V (Command+V on a Mac) or by long-pressing in a text box on a phone.
- How do I type the shrug emoticon?
- Search for shrug and click it. Typing it by hand needs the macron (¯), the katakana ツ and a backslash, which most keyboards do not offer, so copying is easier. It is written ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
- Why does my kaomoji look broken or show boxes?
- The font on your device or in the app lacks one or more of the characters. Kaomoji pull symbols from several scripts, and not every font covers them all. Try another face, another app, or a font with wide Unicode coverage.
- Are these kaomoji safe for school?
- The selection leaves out rude and hostile faces and any aimed at a group of people. Some faces are annoyed or sad, because those are real feelings, and the table flip is a joke about frustration. Preview the list for your own age group.
- Who made these kaomoji?
- No one person did. Kaomoji grew up in Japanese online communities and are shared freely. This page is a hand-picked selection of long-standing faces; none of them is generated.
- Can I make my own kaomoji?
- Yes. Combine characters from the Special Characters tool, and use the Unicode Character Inspector to see what each character is called and whether it is widely supported.