Google reveals the most-used emojis for every year since 2020 — and their hidden meanings

An emoji’s worth a thousand words — but some may say more than others.

A Google Trends report revealed the most popular emojis of the last six years.

The sideways crying-while-laughing face emoji, which expresses uncontrollable laughter, was crowned the most used emoji of 2026. 

In 2025, the niche emoji of a pinching hand came in the lead, which is most commonly used as a cheeky way of asking, “What do you want?” or it can be texted to connote a “chef’s kiss” level of rightness.

Apparently, 2024 was the year of “no,” as the shaking head horizontally emoji took the top spot. This can range from expressing a simple negative response, but often serves as an image for the playful phrase “Hard pass.”

2023 was the year of love, with the classic pink heart emoji being commonly used to show feelings of gentle or even platonic affection — as opposed to red hearts, which many tech-savvy texters agree hold more emotional weight.

In 2022, the melting face reigned supreme. 

A meme of all trades, it is used to describe a variety of circumstances that aren’t particularly pleasant — including embarrassment, burnout and literal heat. 

However, Reddit users have said they occasionally use it in the language of love, to express their heart “melting” as they flirt.

2021 saw the face exhaling with a tiny puff of air as the winner of the year — which is often used to express a person or experience taking one’s breath away.

2020’s emoji grand champ was actually a trio of images — the eye-mouth-eye emoji combo.

The internet age explanatory site Know Your Meme says this set connotes a feeling of “It is what it is,” expressing an attitude of acceptance towards an undesirable outcome. It can also be used to express a feeling of speechlessness.

According to reports by Pumble and Amra & Elma, emoji use saw a staggering 775% increase in the last three years.

While different generations have their own uses for them — baby Boomers tend to be “emoji traditionalists” while Gen Z uses them more ironically and leans into hidden meanings — when it comes to using emojis while texting a potential partner, Lauren Tetenbaum, a NYC-based psychotherapist, told The Post earlier this year that it’s important to exercise restraint when utilizing the ubiquitous icons.

“You don’t want to use any of the extreme facial expression ones, like the laugh-cry emoji, excessively — was the text you are replying to really that funny?” Tetenbaum said. “Also try not to use overly sexual emojis in a serious context, especially if you haven’t reached the sexting stage (or, ever, depending on your partner’s energy!).”