Gboard is rolling out an Emoji size control to beta testers, a slider that decides how large emoji appear in the picker and, as a direct consequence, how many fit on each row. It is a small addition, but for anyone who squints at a grid of nine tiny faces to find the right one, that is more useful than it sounds.
Where the Gboard Emoji size setting lives
The control sits in Gboard’s own settings rather than Android’s, directly beneath the existing Font size option:
- Open Gboard settings.
- Go to Preferences.
- Open Appearance.
- Use the Emoji size slider, which shows a live preview of the result just above it.
Gboard’s own description of the setting reads: “Set the size and number of emoji shown in a row,” which is an unusually honest bit of UI text — it tells you up front that size and density are the same dial, not two.
What the steps actually do
On a Pixel 10 Pro, 9to5Google reports the increments run 9, 8, 8+, 7, 7+, 6 and 5, with 9 as the default. The plain numbers are how many emoji sit in a row, so dropping from 9 to 5 gives you noticeably larger glyphs and a lot more scrolling. The two “plus” steps are the interesting ones: they make emoji slightly bigger while keeping the same number per row, which is the option to try first if you want better legibility without turning the picker into a scroll marathon.
One limitation worth knowing before you go hunting for a difference: the setting does not apply to the Emoji Kitchen row along the top of the picker. Change the slider, look at the main grid rather than that strip.
Beta only, for now
9to5Google is seeing Emoji size in Gboard beta version 18.0.3.x, which means it is not on the stable channel yet and there is no announced date for when it will be. Google has not announced it — 9to5Google’s hands-on is the only account of it we could find — so even beta testers on that version may not have it yet.
The timing is not accidental. 9to5Google frames the setting alongside Google’s new 3D emoji and the Pixel 11’s Gboard Rambler, and notes that it “helps you appreciate the detail in Google’s updated design” — larger glyphs being the obvious way to show off new artwork. That makes this partly a showcase feature — but the accessibility benefit is real regardless of why it shipped, and it costs nothing to set once and forget. If you are already in Gboard’s settings, our roundup of Gboard’s hidden settings for better typing covers several other switches in the same menus that are worth flipping.
Source: 9to5Google
