Grinning Face with Smiling Eyes Emoji
A broad grin where the eyes crease too, which makes the happiness read as genuine rather than polite.
Try Grinning Face with Smiling Eyes emoji
Edit the text, then change the size.
Meaning & usage
What does the Grinning Face with Smiling Eyes emoji mean?
A broad grin where the eyes crease too, which makes the happiness read as genuine rather than polite.
The creased eyes are what separate this from a polite grin — a smile that reaches the eyes reads as felt rather than performed. It suits genuine warmth better than excitement.
How to use 😄 naturally
Warm replies, shared good news and messages where sincerity matters more than volume.
Face emoji usually carry more tone than literal information. Read them alongside the words, the relationship between the people, and whether the conversation is playful, formal or tense.
From standard to slang
The history of 😄
- 2010
First defined as emoji
According to Unicode’s Emoji Versions data, Grinning Face with Smiling Eyes was first defined as emoji in Emoji 0.6, dated 2010. That label is retrospective: Unicode applied it later to the early mobile core it inherited from the Japanese carriers.
- Before the keyboard
Its visual roots
An open grin under curved, closed eyes. Combining a wide mouth with warm eyes is what makes it the friendliest of the grinning set.
- Today
How its use evolved
Warm replies, shared good news and messages where sincerity matters more than volume.
Dates follow Unicode’s official Emoji Versions chart. Versions before Emoji 1.0 are labelled retrospectively. See the history of emoji.
In conversation
Examples of 😄 in messages
These examples show the emoji in complete messages, where the words make its intended tone easier to read.
So glad that worked out for you 😄
Lovely to see you yesterday 😄
She said yes to the whole plan 😄
When to use it
Using 😄 clearly
Warm replies, shared good news and messages where sincerity matters more than volume. It lands as grinning face with smiling eyes or 😄 meaning when the rest of the message supports that reading, and it is the surrounding words that do the deciding — so in a sensitive, professional or cross-cultural conversation, say the thing outright as well.
Common questions
About the grinning face with smiling eyes emoji
What does 😄 mean in a text message?
A broad grin where the eyes crease too, which makes the happiness read as genuine rather than polite. The creased eyes are what separate this from a polite grin — a smile that reaches the eyes reads as felt rather than performed. It suits genuine warmth better than excitement.
Is 😄 always positive?
Not always. Its usual readings are grinning face with smiling eyes, 😄 meaning, smiling emoji, and irony or the relationship between the people can flip any of them.
Why does 😄 look different on another device?
U+1F604 identifies the emoji; the picture is a font, drawn separately by Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung. Only the artwork changes, never the character.
How do I copy and paste the grinning face with smiling eyes emoji?
Use the copy button at the top of this page. 😄 is a character, not an image, so it pastes into messages, captions and filenames as ordinary text.
When was the grinning face with smiling eyes emoji introduced?
Unicode’s Emoji Versions data first records 😄 as emoji in Emoji 0.6, dated 2010. Early emoji version numbers can be retrospective, so this date describes its place in the standardised emoji set rather than the first-ever appearance of the underlying symbol.
Easily confused
😄 compared with similar emoji
These sit close enough in meaning that people reach for the wrong one. Here is what actually separates them.
Grinning Face with Smiling Eyes or Smiling Face with Smiling Eyes?
😊 is a closed, modest smile; 😄 is an open grin. Both have smiling eyes, so the mouth is doing all the work.
Grinning Face with Smiling Eyes or Beaming Face with Smiling Eyes?
😁 shuts the eyes entirely and shows more teeth, which pushes it from warm into delighted.
For developers
😄 in code
Every value below is generated from the character itself, so it stays correct even where a file encoding cannot hold the emoji directly.
| Format | Value | When to use it | Copy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unicode | U+1F604 | The standard reference. Use it to search a character map or a spec. | |
| HTML (hex) | 😄 | For HTML and XML. Safe in files that are not saved as UTF-8. | |
| HTML (decimal) | 😄 | The same reference in decimal. Both render identically. | |
| CSS | \1F604 | For the content property. Keep the quotes around the whole value. | |
| JavaScript | \u{1F604} | A string-literal escape. Needs the u flag inside a regular expression. | |
| URL-encoded | %F0%9F%98%84 | Percent-encoded UTF-8, for query strings and API requests. |
Reference card
Emoji details
- Unicode
- U+1F604
- Category
- Smileys & Emotion
- Also known as
- grinning face with smiling eyes😄 meaningsmiling emoji
Put it in a message
When 😄 is the right choice
Keep browsing