Are you tired of having your emoticons (“🙂”) turned into emojis (“😊”) all the time on Discord?
Maybe you’re old-fashioned and like emoticons (text) more than emojis (graphic).
This article will help you disable the automated emojis on Discord so the text doesn’t get transformed into graphics automatically.
Here’s how you can do it on a computer:
- Go to Discord Settings (gear icon)
- Select “Text & Images”
- Disable the “Automatically convert emotions in your messages to emoji” option
There’s no such option on mobile, but you don’t need it. Emojis don’t automatically turn into emoticons on Discord mobile.
You have a special category that lets you send emojis without typing in their text equivalents!
Keep reading to learn how to stop Discord from making emojis!
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How Can You Stop Discord from Making Automated Emojis?
It’s simple to stop Discord from turning emoticons into emojis automatically. Follow the steps below to do it:
1. Go to Discord Settings (gear icon)

Open Discord and look for a Gear icon at the bottom of the app. That’s where your Discord settings are.
Click on the gear icon and proceed to the next step!
2. Select “Text & Images”

Once you open your Discord settings, you’ll see a menu with multiple options on the left-hand side of the screen.
These options include “My Account”, “User Profile”, “Nitro”, “Billing”, and more.
You’ll need to look for the “Text & Images” option. Scroll down, and you’ll find this option under the “App Settings” header.
Click on it and proceed to the final step!
3. Disable the “Automatically convert emoticons to emojis” option

In the “Text & Images” setting, look for the “Automatically convert emoticons in your messages to emoji” option and disable it.
Make sure it’s greyed out before you exit the settings. Then, you can try typing out an emotion in the chat and see what happens.

As you can see, with the option enabled, the emoticon is automatically turned into an emoji once you send the message.
With the option enabled, that’s not happening. Instead, you only send the emoticon, the text.
What If I Want to Send Emojis from Time to Time?
The solution explained above disables emojis permanently. You won’t be able to send emojis the old traditional way.
But what if you still want to keep sending emojis from time to time?
In this case, I have another solution for you – keep the “Automatically convert emoticons in your messages to emojis” option enabled.
Then, if you want to send an emoticon but not an emoji, add a “\” before the emoticon.
For example – instead of “🙂”, you should type in “\:)” instead.

This way, you can send “both” emoticons and emojis whenever you want to. Just make sure you’re using the backslash (“\”) and not the forward-slash (“/”).
How Can I Use Emojis on Discord Mobile?
Discord mobile doesn’t automatically convert emoticons into emojis when you chat with people.
Only emoticons are used. If you want to use emojis, there’s a specific option for that, and it’s identical to other social media platforms like WhatsApp.
You’ll find the emoji icon in the bottom-right corner of the chat window.

Tap on it to open a list of emojis you can use. This way, you don’t need to type in the emoticon equivalent of an emoji.
You can look for smiley emojis by typing “s” in the emoji search bar. This will show you all the smiley emojis available on Discord.

If you want to send a specific emoji on Discord Mobile, select it. This will make it appear in the chat window.
Then, send the message, and you’re done. Mobile Discord is much easier to use in terms of emoticons and emojis.
Conclusion
To summarize, you can stop Discord from making emojis out of your emoticons in two ways:
- Disable the “Automatically convert emoticons in your messages to emojis” option in the Discord Settings
- Type in a “\” backslash before your emoticon, and send it like that
On Discord mobile, you don’t need either option. That’s because you have an Emoji function in the chat interface.
Discord doesn’t convert emoticons to emojis automatically on the mobile app. You need to send emojis manually from the emoji function!
How are frequently used emojis determined on Discord?
Frequently used emojis are determined based on what emojis you used most frequently.
If you use a frowning face very often, you’ll see that emoji in your “frequently used emojis” list.
Moreover, these emojis are determined based on a scale, most frequently used at the top.
The first emoji in that list is also the one you use the most. Then, there are others you use a bit less but still more than others.
However, many users report that their “frequently used emojis” list contains emojis that they’ve never used.
It could be that, by default, this list contains several emojis. Or it could be that you’ve recently reset your phone or cleared the Discord cache.
This may reset the “frequently used emojis” list, and your personalized emojis may be deleted.
Is the backslash visible in the chat when I send it with an emoticon?
One of the solutions presented above is to type in a backslash before your emoticon. This is so that Discord doesn’t transform it into an emoji.
And it works. But does the backslash appear in the chat, alongside your emotion?
The answer is “No,” it doesn’t appear. The backslash before an emoticon acts as a “command” you give to Discord.
This command was created especially for this situation when you don’t want to send an emoji.
So, the backslash will be invisible when you send the emoticon in the chat. It’ll disappear, basically, and you won’t create confusion with your emoticon.
You can even send emojis and emoticons in the same message by adding and removing the backslash whenever necessary.
For instance, you can send the following message – “😊 \:) 😊 \:-)” with both emojis and emoticons.
This allows you to talk to everyone in any style you want, whether they prefer emojis or emoticons.
As for your preference, you can use the backlash trick to switch between emojis and emoticons whenever you want to.