It’s the holidays, so why not react with “🎁” or something festive instead of just “Haha”?

Not a fan of the generic iOS message reactions, called Tapbacks? The six original Tapbacks were a heart, thumbs up or down, a “Haha,” exclamation points or a question mark. Some people might be confused or irritated when they see someone react to their message with one of these. For instance, some folks feel the thumbs-up emoji is passive-aggressive. With iOS 18, you can use any emoji or sticker on your iPhone to react to messages, giving you more avenues to communicate your feelings.

Apple released iOS 18 in September, and the update brought loads of new features to your iPhone, like the ability to customize lock screens and schedule messages to send later. One exciting new feature in the update that will make your texts more fun is the ability to use all your emoji (and even your stickers) to react to messages.

Read more: Everything You Need to Know About iOS 18

Here’s how you can use all your emoji and stickers to react to texts in Messages.

How to use all emoji for Tapbacks

1. Open Messages.
2. Tap into the right chat.
3. Long-press on a message.

In the Tapbacks bubble above the message, scroll to the right to show a handful of emoji to use. If you don’t see the right emoji, or you want to use a sticker, tap the gray smiley to the far right of the menu to pull up your emoji keyboard. You can scroll through the emoji or use the search function to find the emoji you want to use.

You can also tap the sticker icon — the folded-over circle — near the left side of the emoji keyboard to access your premade and custom-made stickers. That means you can react to someone’s message with a sticker of your pet if you want to, and who doesn’t want to see more pets?

Watch this: 4 Apple Watch Fitness Features You May Not Know Exist

05:05

For more on iOS 18, here’s everything you need to know about iOS 18.2 and iOS 18.1. You can also check out our iOS 18 cheat sheet. 

Enlist Apple Maps to Plan Your Next Vacation

+5 More

See all photos