Google first introduced emoji in Gmail in October 2008.
The feature arrived on October 23, 2008, as a colorful alternative to text emoticons such as ;-) and :-(. Gmail users could insert pictographs directly into messages, including animated designs. Google’s original set was later nicknamed “goomoji.”
This launch was part of the early international spread of emoji, which originated in Japan’s mobile-phone ecosystem. Google worked with au by KDDI, one of Japan’s major carriers, while Gmail used its own private-use encoding rather than the Unicode emoji standard that became widely adopted in 2010.
A common mix-up is confusing Gmail’s 2008 launch with Apple’s first iPhone emoji support. Apple introduced Apple Color Emoji for Japanese iPhone users with iPhone OS 2.2 in November 2008. Google’s Gmail release came first in that year, although neither system yet used today’s fully standardized emoji implementation.