Windows 11 just gained a wave of new emojis, though there are limits on where they'll appear. Emoji 16.0 support is rolling out to Windows 11, according to Emojipedia and spotted by Windows Latest. The update is adding seven new emojis to the operating system.
Emoji 16.0 was first approved in September 2024, but it has taken time to roll out to Windows 11. It appears that support for the new emojis shipped with the September 2025 Patch Tuesday update, though there's a chance it shipped to PCs earlier.
The new emojis only appear in some parts of Windows 11 at the moment. Pasting the new emojis into Microsoft Word works, but pasting them into Microsoft Edge results in a black rectangle that indicates an unsupported character.
Emoji 16.0 actually includes eight new emojis, but one of them is not supported on Windows 11. Microsoft has a history of not supporting geographic flag emojis, so it's unlikely we'll see the flag of Sark on Windows 11.
You can, however, see the flag of Sark if you paste it into WhatsApp on your PC.
For those unfamiliar, Wikipedia says Sark is "an island in the southwestern English Channel, off the coast of Normandy, and part of the archipelago of the Channel Islands." Insert the "more you know" rainbow here.
Here are the eight emojis included with Emoji 16.0 (note that they may not render on your browser):
- Face with Bags Under Eyes
- Fingerprint
- Leafless Tree
- Root Vegetable
- Harp
- Shovel
- Splatter
- 🇨🇶 Flag for Sark
You can see all of those emojis at Emojipedia or copy and paste the above list into WhatsApp.
The new emojis do not appear in the Emoji Panel on Windows 11 at this time.
When will Emoji 17 be supported on Windows 11?
Earlier this week, Unicode confirmed the new emojis that will be added in 2026. That list includes seven new emojis: Distorted Face, Fight Cloud, Orca, Hairy Creature, Trombone, Landslide, and Treasure Chest.
Microsoft usually takes a while to support a new set of emojis. We likely won't see the emojis that are part of the Emoji 17.0 set until sometime in 2026.
Regardless of when Emoji 17.0 rolls out to Windows, it appears PC users will not be able to use the new set to troll Apple. Emoji 17.0 originally included an Apple Core emoji, but that was removed at the last minute.
According to an Emojipedia blog post, this is the first time in several years that the final roster of emojis changed between the preview stage and release.
When Unicode shared the preview of Emoji 17.0 in November of 2024, it included an Apple Core emoji.
Coincidentally, on the same day as Apple's big event announcing the iPhone Air, it was revealed that the Apple Core emoji would not ship with Emoji 17.0.
Emojigate
Microsoft has a surprisingly complex history with emojis. A saga known as "Emojigate" saw the tech giant tease 3D emojis in Windows 11, a member of staff claim the wrong graphic had been used, and several blog posts and social media posts from Microsoft contradicting each other.
To be honest, I don't think emojis being 2D or 3D makes much of a difference. But both at the time and now, I think the communication on the subject reflects poorly on Microsoft.
I said during the height of Emojigate:
"This saga isn't about emoji, at least not to me. I'm sure there are people that are upset about Windows 11 having 3D or 2D emoji, but I think Emojigate illustrates a larger problem within Microsoft's design process. If Microsoft can't deliver a clear message about what it plans to do with emoji, how can we expect the company to enact a unified design strategy across Windows 11? And if the company can't design emoji and then ship them to an OS, how can we expect Microsoft to unify the look of all of Windows 11, which is tremendously more complex?"
Windows 11 did eventually get 3D emojis — and they're lovely. But that wasn't really what Emojigate was about.
