Kaomoji Generator
Kaomoji are the Japanese style of emoticon, little faces like (◕‿◕) or ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ that you read straight on rather than tilting your head sideways the way you do for :-). Search by mood or browse the categories, then tap any face to copy it.
Updated 12 Aug 2026
About the Kaomoji Generator
Because a kaomoji is built from ordinary characters rather than an emoji picture, it pastes in and looks the same almost everywhere: a chat, a caption, a bio, a comment, a game tag. Nothing here is stored or sent anywhere; the copy happens on your device.
Step by step
How to use the Kaomoji Generator
Search or browse for what you want, then tap it to copy. There is nothing to type in first.
Search or browse
Use the search box or the categories to find what you are after. Results filter as you type.
Tap to copy
Click any result to copy that character straight to your clipboard. No highlighting or right-click needed.
Paste it
Paste it wherever you need it. It is a standard character, so it travels into any app that accepts text.
Get it right
Tips and common mistakes
Tips
- Search by mood rather than trying to browse categories: typing "happy", "sad", "shrug", or "angry" in the search box narrows to the relevant expressions faster than scrolling the full list.
- Kaomoji work well as a bio accent between plain-text lines: a single face like (◕‿◕) or ｡◕‿◕｡ between two lines of a bio adds personality without the visual weight of emoji on every line.
- The shrug kaomoji (¯\_(ツ)_/¯) is the one most people want by name. Search "shrug" or "disapprove" to find it quickly without remembering the exact brackets.
Common mistakes
- Using a kaomoji that relies on rare characters in a place where device font coverage is uncertain: the faces here use well-supported characters, but some collections include glyphs from less common Unicode blocks that show as boxes on older phones. The faces on this page avoid that, but if you copy one from elsewhere and it arrives as boxes, that is usually why.
- Stacking several kaomoji in a row: one or two is expressive; a line of five different faces in a single message is harder to read and dilutes the effect of each one.
- Forgetting that kaomoji take character space: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ is eleven characters, which can matter in a strict 30-character Instagram name field or a game tag limit.
Keep going
Related tools
Other generators people use alongside the Kaomoji Generator.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a kaomoji and an emoji?
An emoji is a single pictographic character that each platform draws in its own style, so the same emoji looks different on an iPhone than on an Android. A kaomoji is a face assembled from ordinary text characters, like brackets and punctuation, so it looks the same everywhere and never renders as a coloured picture. If you want single pictogram emoji instead, this site has a separate Emoji Generator.
Will kaomoji display correctly everywhere I paste them?
Almost always, because they are built from common Unicode characters. The faces here are deliberately kept to well-supported characters rather than the rarest glyphs some collections use, so they hold together across phones, desktops, and most apps. A very old device missing a particular character is the only place a piece of a face might show as a box.
How do I type a kaomoji myself?
You can assemble one from brackets, punctuation and the occasional special character, but the fiddly parts are the eyes and cheeks, which often use characters that are hard to type on a normal keyboard. Copying a finished one is faster, which is what this tool is for. Paste it in, and edit it afterwards if you want to tweak the expression.
Is the Kaomoji Generator free to use?
Yes. The Kaomoji Generator is completely free with no sign-up, no watermarks, and no limits on how much text you convert or how many times you copy it.