gemoji-json

A maintained, up-to-date emoji.json database extracted from github/gemoji and Unicode Emoji.

This repo exists because the upstream gemoji repository is effectively unmaintained and has not been updated past Unicode 15.0. This fork tracks the latest Unicode emoji releases.

Download

emoji.json (right-click, Save As)

Format

Each entry in the JSON array represents an emoji:

[
  {
    "emoji": "😀"
  , "description": "grinning face"
  , "category": "Smileys & Emotion"
  , "aliases": [
      "grinning"
    ]
  , "tags": [
      "smile"
    , "happy"
    ]
  , "unicode_version": "6.1"
  , "ios_version": "6.0"
  }
, {
    "emoji": "🫩"
  , "description": "face with bags under eyes"
  , "category": "Smileys & Emotion"
  , "aliases": [
      "face_with_bags_under_eyes"
    ]
  , "tags": [
    ]
  , "unicode_version": "16.0"
  }
]

Field	Description
emoji	The emoji character(s)
description	Human-readable description from the Unicode spec
category	One of 9 Unicode emoji categories
aliases	Short names (e.g. :grinning: on GitHub)
tags	Search keywords
unicode_version	Unicode version that introduced this emoji
ios_version	iOS version that added support (existing emoji only)
skin_tones	true if the emoji supports skin tone modifiers

Development

To regenerate emoji.json from the latest Unicode emoji data:

go run . > emoji.json

This fetches the latest emoji-test.txt from unicode.org, merges it with the existing emoji.json (preserving curated aliases and tags), and outputs the updated file.

License

MIT