Does Requesting an Emoji on Emoji Request Guarantee It Will Be Created?

Updated

No. Emoji Request (emojirequest.com) is a platform for collecting and ranking suggestions for new emojis, not a body that approves or ships them. Submitting a request adds your vote to a public count; it does not create a commitment from the site, Apple, Google, or the Unicode Consortium to produce that emoji. The site's own wording is deliberately open: it says to request the emojis you'd like to see created and "we'll take it from there."

What the site actually promises

The About section describes EmojiRequest.com as "a worldwide platform for requesting new Emojis," run by EmojiXpress, with requests accepted through the website or its iOS app. It reports that some requested emojis have since been created, naming Hush and Swearing as examples. That is a track record, not a guarantee — the page states no timeline, approval criteria, or success rate.

The homepage also shows a running total of 8,052,424 emoji requests, alongside "Most Wanted," "Just Added," and "iOS Released" views. Those numbers measure popularity and past outcomes, not pending commitments.

Why a request can't be a promise

Emoji creation runs through a process the site doesn't control:

  • Standardization: new emojis are formally approved through the Unicode Consortium's proposal process, which weighs factors like expected frequency of use, distinctiveness, and whether an image already exists for the concept.
  • Vendor design: once standardized, each platform (Apple, Google, etc.) decides when and how to draw and release its own version.
  • Timing: the gap between a popular request and a shipped emoji can span multiple release cycles, and many requests never clear the first step.

Emoji Request sits upstream of all of this. It aggregates demand that proponents can point to, but it cannot move a proposal through approval or force a vendor to draw it.

How to treat a request

Use the site as a signal-boosting tool rather than a pre-order:

  1. Check whether the concept already exists — the "Just Added" and "iOS Released" lists show what has already made it, so you don't spend a request on something available.
  2. Submit or upvote the emoji you want, and note the count it carries; a high number in "Most Wanted" is evidence of demand you can cite if you discuss the idea elsewhere.
  3. Expect nothing automatic. A request is a suggestion. If the emoji matters to you, the more reliable path is following the Unicode proposal process directly and tracking vendor release notes.

The practical takeaway: requesting an emoji on Emoji Request is a way to register and measure interest. Creation depends on approval and design decisions made outside the site, so treat every request as a suggestion rather than a confirmed commitment.