Some limitations for the in-development feature will cap how many emoji you can apply to a single email. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Google is developing emoji reactions for Gmail that would make the email platform feel a little more like a messaging app if released. The feature was first reported a few weeks ago by The Tape Drive after some code was discovered in the iOS Gmail app that would allow users to react to emails with an emoji, just like similar emoji reaction implementations found on rival platforms like Outlook.
Additional evidence has since been found in the latest Gmail APK for Android that supports the claim. As reported by Google leaker AssembleDebug, the APK contains several lines of code that directly refer to emoji reactions. Details are a tad sparse, but one line from the APK code says the feature is “coming soon” and that “you’re among the first…