Safe Emojis for Email – Legacy Outlook & Modern Clients

Discover safe emojis for email subject lines and campaigns. Choose the legacy-compatible set for older Outlook (BMP symbols & dingbats, text presentation) or switch to the extended set for modern clients. Our tested Unicode list works in Gmail, Outlook, Apple Mail, iOS, and Android. Copy & paste instantly.

Related Tools: Safe Emoji for MMS/SMS/text
Search scans the currently selected set (Legacy or Extended) across all categories.
Off = Legacy (older Outlook-compatible) — default
White Smiling Face
White Frowning Face
Black Smiling Face

Emojis for Outlook subject lines

Every character below has been in Unicode since version 6.0 (2010) or earlier, is a single code point (no ZWJ sequences, no skin-tone modifiers, no flags) and has a glyph in Segoe UI Emoji, the font Windows and classic desktop Outlook use for pictographs. Press Copy, then paste into the subject field with Ctrl+V. The list is fixed and is not affected by the search box or the Legacy/Extended switch above.

What recipients see: the new Outlook for Windows, Outlook on the web, Outlook for Mac, iOS and Android, Gmail and Apple Mail all show colour. Classic Outlook 2016, 2019 and Microsoft 365 for Windows shows colour in the message body but typically renders the subject line and message list as grey monochrome glyphs, so prefer shapes that still read without colour (✅ ⭐ 🔔 📌 🚀 ⚠) over emoji that differ only by hue (🔴 versus 🟢, 💛 versus 💚). Outlook 2007, 2010 and 2013 fall back to Segoe UI Symbol: monochrome, and anything missing from that font becomes a box. Keep to one emoji at the very start of the subject; it survives mobile truncation and stays clear of the emoji-stuffed look that recipients and filters associate with spam. Windows key + period opens the system emoji picker in any Outlook subject field, but that picker also offers Unicode 10.0+ emoji that older clients cannot draw, so copying from this list is the safer route.

Check Mark Button
Heavy Check Mark
Star
Bell
Calendar
Pushpin
Envelope
E-Mail
Rocket
Warning Sign
Red Circle
Party Popper
Megaphone
Alarm Clock
Hourglass Not Done
Fire
Light Bulb
New Button
Backhand Index Pointing Right
Wrapped Gift
Bar Chart
Locked
Trophy
Smiling Face with Smiling Eyes
White Smiling Face (text)

Seasonal emojis that render everywhere

Holiday sends reach the oldest mailboxes on your list (school, government and family accounts), so the picks below lean on Unicode 6.0 (2010), the release that gave Windows, iOS and Android their shared emoji core. A grey badge marks Unicode 7.0 to 9.0 symbols (2014-2016): safe on Windows 10, iOS 10 and Android 7 or later, missing on Windows 7. A yellow Newer badge marks Unicode 10.0 and later (2017 onwards); keep the meaning in your words and treat those as decoration.

Thanksgiving

🦃 only exists from Unicode 8.0 (2015). For a list heavy in old Outlook, lead with 🍂 or 🍁 instead.

Turkey
Unicode 8.0 (2015)
Fallen Leaf
Maple Leaf
Pie
Newer: Unicode 10.0 (2017)
Ear of Corn
Poultry Leg

Halloween

🎃 and 👻 render everywhere; the spider pair is Unicode 7.0 and the bat 9.0.

Jack-O-Lantern
Ghost
Skull
Candy
Spider
Unicode 7.0 (2014)
Spider Web
Unicode 7.0 (2014)
Bat
Unicode 9.0 (2016)

Christmas and New Year

🎅 accepts skin-tone modifiers: send the plain base character, never a toned variant, or old clients show two boxes.

Christmas Tree
Snowflake (text)
Snowman Without Snow
Santa Claus
Wrapped Gift
Bell
Party Popper
Confetti Ball
Sparkles
Fireworks
Bottle with Popping Cork
Unicode 8.0 (2015)
Clinking Glasses
Unicode 9.0 (2016)

Valentine's Day

❤ without a variation selector shows as a text heart in old Outlook; 💝 and 💘 guarantee a colour heart in modern clients.

Heavy Black Heart (text)
Heart with Ribbon
Heart with Arrow
Love Letter
Rose
Bouquet
Face Blowing a Kiss
Chocolate Bar

Diwali

🪔 Diya Lamp is Unicode 12.0 (2019) and 🪷 Lotus is 14.0 (2021): fine on current phones and webmail, boxes on anything unpatched. ✨ 🎆 🎇 are the safe fallbacks.

Diya Lamp
Newer: Unicode 12.0 (2019)
Sparkles
Fireworks
Sparkler
Candle
Unicode 7.0 (2014)
Folded Hands
Lotus
Newer: Unicode 14.0 (2021)

Easter

Egg 🥚 is Unicode 9.0 (2016); the rabbit and chick pairs are 6.0.

Rabbit Face
Rabbit
Hatching Chick
Front-Facing Baby Chick
Tulip
Cherry Blossom
Egg
Unicode 9.0 (2016)

Summer

☀ and ⛱ are older BMP symbols that render as text glyphs in old Outlook; 🏖 and 🕶 are Unicode 7.0.

Sun (text)
Sun with Face
Umbrella on Ground
Beach with Umbrella
Unicode 7.0 (2014)
Watermelon
Palm Tree
Soft Ice Cream
Water Wave
Sunglasses
Unicode 7.0 (2014)

Frequently Asked Questions

Compatible uses classic BMP text symbols (e.g., ★ ✓ ☀ ☺) without emoji variation selectors or ZWJ sequences, so they render reliably in older Outlook desktop and other legacy clients. Extended adds modern colorful emoji (😀 ❤️ 🍕) that are widely supported in Gmail, Apple Mail, and Outlook 365. Extended still excludes risky types like flags, skin tones, and complex ZWJ sequences to avoid tofu boxes.

If your list includes enterprise or Outlook-heavy users, stick with Compatible for maximum coverage. If your audience is mostly mobile and modern webmail, Extended is fine. When unsure, start with Compatible and A/B test a small segment with Extended to confirm rendering and performance.

Skin-tone modifiers and flags are not legacy-safe and may show as letter codes or blank boxes, so they're excluded. "Sunglasses" 😎 is Extended-only (modern clients). For Compatible mode, use look-alike symbols such as ★, ☀, ✓, or ☻ to convey emphasis without breaking on older Outlook.

For the broadest compatibility, pick from Compatible: hearts (❤ ♥ ♡), stars (★ ☆), checks (✓ ✔ ☑), arrows (→ ↗ ⇐), shapes and bullets (• ■ □ ◆ ◇), simple weather (☀ ☁ ☔ ❄), and classic faces (☺ ☹ ☻). These render as readable text across legacy clients.

Yes—older desktop Outlook usually shows Compatible emojis as monochrome text glyphs. Newer Outlook (web/365) supports most Extended emojis. If you must reach both, prefer Compatible or test Extended on a small cohort first.

Each platform ships its own font. The style can vary (color vs. text glyphs), but the character remains the same. Compatible keeps to symbols with strong fallbacks so your message stays readable even without color.

Emojis are just Unicode text and don't harm deliverability by themselves. Spam issues come from poor practices (ALL CAPS, excessive symbols, misleading copy). Use 0–2 relevant emojis and keep wording clear.

One is the sweet spot, placed at the very start so it survives truncation on phones (roughly 30-40 characters are visible). Two is the practical ceiling. Strings of three or more read as promotional, eat the characters your words need, and in classic Windows Outlook turn into a grey cluster because the subject field renders emoji in monochrome. Avoid repeating the same emoji for emphasis (🎉🎉🎉); emoji-stuffed subjects look like spam to recipients and can hurt deliverability.

Used sparingly and relevantly, emojis can lift opens by improving scannability. Overuse reduces clarity and may depress performance. Test with and without to confirm impact on your audience.

Yes. They work in subjects, preheaders, and body copy. Keep crucial information in text, and use emojis to support meaning rather than replace words.

Send to a seed list covering Outlook desktop (legacy), Outlook web/365, Gmail (web/Android), and Apple Mail (iOS/macOS). Compare renders, confirm no tofu boxes, and A/B test Compatible vs Extended on a small segment.

Screen readers announce emoji descriptions (e.g., "black star"). Keep essential meaning in words, place emojis after key text, and avoid long emoji strings so announcements remain concise.

Scroll to the Thanksgiving row in the seasonal section, press Copy under 🦃 Turkey, click into your subject field and paste (Ctrl+V on Windows, Cmd+V on Mac). It is plain Unicode text (U+1F983), so it works in Outlook, Gmail, Mailchimp, HubSpot or any other subject box without HTML tricks. Turkey arrived in Unicode 8.0 (2015), so Windows 7 machines running old Outlook show a hollow box; if that audience matters, 🍂 Fallen Leaf (Unicode 6.0) is the safer Thanksgiving pick.

Outlook 2007 and 2010 draw messages with the Word engine and can only show characters that exist in an installed system font. Windows 7 ships Segoe UI Symbol, which covers BMP symbols such as ★ ✓ ☀ ✉ ⚠ in monochrome; glyphs for the pictograph block at U+1F300 and above (😀 🎉) only arrive with the optional 2012 update KB2729094, and even then nothing newer than Unicode 6.1 (so never 🦃). Anything without a glyph is drawn as an empty rectangle, the so-called tofu box. Emoji built from several code points (skin tones, ZWJ sequences such as family or profession emoji) fall apart into two or three boxes. The Compatible set on this page contains only characters with a Segoe UI Symbol glyph.

It depends on which Outlook. The new Outlook for Windows, Outlook on the web and Outlook for Mac and mobile show full-colour emoji in the message list, subject and body. Classic desktop Outlook 2016, 2019 and Microsoft 365 renders colour in the message body but typically draws subject lines and the message list as grey monochrome Segoe UI Emoji glyphs. Outlook 2007-2013 is monochrome everywhere and shows boxes for anything outside Segoe UI Symbol. Pick emoji whose shape still reads in grey, such as ✅ ⭐ 🔔 📌 🚀, rather than ones that depend on colour, such as 🔴 versus 🟢.