A Compose Multiplatform emoji picker. Works on Android, iOS, JVM/Desktop, and wasmJs from a single codebase.

Research in April 2026 confirmed there is no Compose Multiplatform emoji picker. kosi-libs/Emoji.kt provides the data layer and renderers across all CMP targets but does not ship a picker UI. Every existing "compose emoji picker" on GitHub (androidx.emoji2.emojipicker, Abhimanyu14/compose-emoji-picker, vanniktech/Emoji, and several others) is Android-only.

This library is a thin UI layer on top of org.kodein.emoji:emoji-compose-m3, giving you:

• Category tabs backed by CLDR emoji groups
• Searchable grid with description + shortcode + emoticon matching
• Skin tone selector for SkinTone1Emoji and SkinTone2Emoji
• Pluggable RecentEmojiStore (in-memory default, bring your own persistence)
• Noto SVG fallback on Wasm and Desktop where system fonts lack glyphs (inherited from kosi-libs)

// settings.gradle.kts
dependencyResolutionManagement {
    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
        google()
    }
}

// picker/build.gradle.kts (commonMain)
dependencies {
    implementation("me.digitalby:kmp-emoji-picker:0.1.0")
}

Kotlin Multiplatform produces one artifact per target (kmp-emoji-picker-android, -jvm, -iosarm64, -iossimulatorarm64, -iosx64, -wasm-js) plus a metadata artifact. Gradle's KMP plugin resolves the right one for your target automatically, so you only need to declare the kmp-emoji-picker coordinate in commonMain.

// settings.gradle.kts
dependencyResolutionManagement {
    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
        google()
        maven {
            url = uri("https://maven.pkg.github.com/digitalby/kmp-emoji-picker")
            credentials {
                username = providers.gradleProperty("gpr.user").orNull
                    ?: System.getenv("GITHUB_ACTOR")
                password = providers.gradleProperty("gpr.key").orNull
                    ?: System.getenv("GITHUB_TOKEN")
            }
        }
    }
}

import me.digitalby.emojipicker.EmojiPicker
import me.digitalby.emojipicker.rememberEmojiPickerState

@Composable
fun MyScreen(onInsert: (String) -> Unit) {
    val state = rememberEmojiPickerState()
    EmojiPicker(
        state = state,
        onEmojiSelected = { emoji -> onInsert(emoji.details.string) },
    )
}

• Android (compileSdk = 35, minSdk = 24)
• iOS (iosX64, iosArm64, iosSimulatorArm64)
• JVM (Desktop)
• wasmJs (browser)

• Tab / Shift+Tab: move between search, category tabs, and the grid
• Arrow keys: move focus between emoji cells in the grid
• Enter / Space: insert the focused emoji
• Alt+Enter: open the skin-tone selector for the focused emoji (when supported)
• Escape: dismiss the skin-tone popup

Every emoji cell carries contentDescription and Role.Button, so TalkBack, VoiceOver, and desktop screen readers announce the emoji name and "button" affordance. Tone chips carry per-tone descriptions (e.g. "waving hand, medium dark skin tone").

Emoji with skin-tone variants show a small disclosure triangle in the bottom-right corner of the cell (matching iOS and Android system pickers), and their contentDescription is suffixed with "has skin tone variants" so screen readers announce the affordance.

Per-emoji names and search keywords ship in 18 locales (en, ru, uk, be, zh, zh-hant, es, fr, de, pt, ja, ko, it, ar, hi, tr, pl, nl), generated from CLDR annotations via the :picker-codegen module.

Category tab labels ("Smileys & Emotion", "People", "Animals & Nature", etc.) ship in the same 18 locales, sourced from Apple's EmojiFoundation.framework/Localizable.loctable via the public applelocalization.com mirror of macOS/iOS system frameworks. The one label without a direct Apple equivalent — Unicode's smileys_emotion group — is hand-authored.

The active locale is detected automatically via each platform's input-method / system locale API. Override via -Demojipicker.forceLocale=<tag> for deterministic tests.

The sample/composeApp module dogfoods the picker on every target.

# Desktop (JVM)
./gradlew :sample:composeApp:run

# Android (device or emulator attached)
./gradlew :sample:composeApp:installDebug

# Web (wasmJs) — serves at http://localhost:8080
./gradlew :sample:composeApp:wasmJsBrowserDevelopmentRun

# iOS — compiles the framework; integrate into your own SwiftUI host
./gradlew :sample:composeApp:linkDebugFrameworkIosSimulatorArm64

For iOS, the KMP module exports MainViewController(). Wire it into SwiftUI:

import SwiftUI
import ComposeApp

struct ComposeView: UIViewControllerRepresentable {
    func makeUIViewController(context: Context) -> UIViewController {
        MainViewControllerKt.MainViewController()
    }
    func updateUIViewController(_ vc: UIViewController, context: Context) {}
}

MIT