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Seeing 'giant' emojis in Gboard? Here's the reason why
2 hours ago
- Gboard’s emoji grid has quietly shifted from nine columns to eight, making the emojis look bigger.
- Users who spotted the change couldn’t figure out what exactly happened.
- It turns out that Google added a flag in October that allows it to adjust the emoji column counts in Gboard, and it’s now set to eight.
If your Gboard emojis have felt oddly large lately, you’re not alone. There’s a good reason why those emojis are suddenly looking bigger.
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Google quietly tweaked the emoji picker by shrinking the grid from nine columns to eight, and that small layout change makes every emoji appear slightly larger on screen.
As small a change as it may be, some users on Reddit and Telegram have been calling it out for a few days, wondering why their emojis started looking “gigantic.”
The switch comes from a flag Google added in mid-October called “emoji_picker_columns,” which basically lets the company adjust how many emoji columns you see without pushing a full app update. Currently, that flag is set to eight columns, but Google can adjust it as needed.
So, if your emoji panel feels a bit zoomed in, don’t worry; it’s not your fault, it’s just Gboard.
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