{"id":26554,"date":"2023-10-26T11:02:46","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T15:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/how-to-use-emoji-in-passwords\/26554\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T18:38:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T13:08:43","slug":"how-to-use-emoji-in-passwords","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kaspersky.co.in\/blog\/how-to-use-emoji-in-passwords\/26554\/","title":{"rendered":"Life-hack of the day: emoji passwords"},"content":{"rendered":"

No one likes passwords. They take ages to enter, are hard to remember, and the need for a number, symbol, uppercase letter, and a couple of hen\u2019s teeth<\/a> only makes creating them all the more difficult. But if you use the same password everywhere, or limit yourself to simple short (read \u2014 weak) passwords, sooner or later you\u2019ll get hacked<\/a>. How to combine ease of input, memorability, and hack resistance? An interesting, if unusual, way is to use emojis \u2014 yes, those same smileys and other cute icons we love to use in chats and posts.<\/p>\n

On today\u2019s computers and smartphones, emojis are just as much full-fledged symbols as letters in alphabets and punctuation marks. That\u2019s because they\u2019re part of the Unicode standard (see here for a full list of standardized emoji<\/a>s), so in theory, they can be used in any text \u2014 including in passwords.\n<\/p>\n

Why use emojis in passwords<\/h2>\n

Since there are a great many emojis in existence, your password can be twice as short.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When intruders try to brute-force a password containing letters, numbers, and punctuation marks, there are fewer than a hundred variations for each symbol they need to pick. But there are more than 3600 standardized emojis in Unicode, so adding one to your password forces hackers to go through around 3700 variants per symbol. So, in terms of complexity, a password made up of five different emoticons is equivalent to a regular password of nine characters\u2019 while seven emojis is equivalent to a strong password of 13 \u201cregular\u201d characters.<\/p>\n

\"Some<\/a>

Some new emojis in Unicode<\/p><\/div>\n

Emojis are easier to memorize.<\/strong> Instead of a meaningless jumble of letters and numbers, you can compose a logical sentence and create an emoji puzzle based on it. For this you can use an emoji translator<\/a> or a chatbot like ChatGPT.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>

An emoji translator or ChatGPT can create an emoji-based puzzle-password on a given topic<\/p><\/div>\n

Hackers don\u2019t brute-force emojis. <\/strong>Various hacking tools and dictionaries for cracking passwords include combinations of words, numbers, and common substitutions like E1iteP4$$w0rd<\/em>, but not (yet?) emojis. So when an attacker goes through a leaked password database, your account protected with a \ufe0f\ufe0f (\u201cI believe I can fly\u201d) password is very likely safe.<\/p>\n

All this sounds too good to be true. So what are the downsides of emoji passwords? Alas, they\u2019re sizeable.\n<\/p>\n

Why not use emojis in passwords?<\/h2>\n

Not all services accept emoji passwords. <\/strong><\/p>\n

We carried out a little account-creation experiment using a password consisting of several standard emojis. It was rejected by both Microsoft\/Outlook and Google\/Gmail. However, Dropbox and OpenAI happily accepted it, so basically it\u2019s a matter of experimentation.<\/p>\n

\"Not<\/a>

Not every service will accept an emoji password<\/p><\/div>\n

You\u2019ll have to test your emoji password immediately to make sure it works.<\/strong> Even if you\u2019re able to create an account with it, it may not pass verification when signing in.<\/p>\n

Emojis are harder to enter.<\/strong> On smartphones, entering emoji is simplicity itself. On desktop computers, however, it can be a bit more troublesome \u2014 though not excessively so (see below for details). In any case, you\u2019ll have to find the emojis you need in a long list, making sure to select the right picture<\/em> from several similar ones. If you cross-platform, remember to check you can enter these emojis on both your computer and smartphone for all services you use.<\/p>\n

Recent emojis give you away<\/strong>. Many smartphone keyboards display frequently used emojis at the top of the list. This information is unlikely to help online hackers, but friends or family may be able to guess or snoop on your password.<\/p>\n

\"Recent<\/a>

Recent emoji can reveal a lot about you to prying eyes<\/p><\/div>\n

How to create a password with emojis<\/h2>\n

\nA reasonable compromise would be to add an emoji or two to your password to up its complexity. The rest of the password can then be alphanumeric, and less fancy. Of course, using emojis is no substitute for traditional security tips: using long passwords, a password manager<\/a> and two-factor authentication (2FA)<\/a>. Speaking of which, our password manager<\/a> can both store passwords with emojis and generate 2FA codes.<\/p>\n

\"Emoji<\/a>

Emoji password and 2FA code in Kaspersky Password Manager<\/p><\/div>\n

How to enter emoji passwords<\/h2>\n

\nThe input method depends on your device and operating system. Smartphones have a special keyboard section for this, while on computers you can use one of these options:\n<\/p>\n