I often need to strip emoji from strings to prevent them from messing up other handling. I’ve been compiling regular expressions and I think I finally have all the bases covered.
This example is in Ruby, but the regular expressions are easy to adapt to any language:
#!/usr/bin/env ruby
# Remove all emoji from a string, including Apple's new overqualified emoji.
#
# Hat tip to mathiasbynens
# <https://github.com/mathiasbynens/emoji-test-regex-pattern/blob/main/script/get-sequences.js>
# String extension for emoji stripping
class ::String
EMOJI_RX = /[\u{fe0f}\u{00A9}\u{00AE}\u{203C}\u{200d}\u{2049}\u{2122}\u{2139}\u{2194}-\u{2199}\u{21A9}-\u{21AA}\u{231A}-\u{231B}\u{2328}\u{23CF}\u{23E9}-\u{23F3}\u{23F8}-\u{23FA}\u{24C2}\u{25AA}-\u{25AB}\u{25B6}\u{25C0}\u{25FB}-\u{25FE}\u{2600}-\u{2604}\u{260E}\u{2611}\u{2614}-\u{2615}\u{2618}\u{261D}\u{2620}\u{2622}-\u{2623}\u{2626}\u{262A}\u{262E}-\u{262F}\u{2638}-\u{263A}\u{2642}-\u{2653}\u{2660}\u{2663}\u{2665}-\u{2666}\u{2668}\u{267B}\u{267F}\u{2692}-\u{2694}\u{2696}-\u{2697}\u{2699}\u{269B}-\u{269C}\u{26A0}-\u{26A1}\u{26AA}-\u{26AB}\u{26B0}-\u{26B1}\u{26BD}-\u{26BE}\u{26C4}-\u{26C5}\u{26C8}\u{26CE}-\u{26CF}\u{26D1}\u{26D3}-\u{26D4}\u{26E9}-\u{26EA}\u{26F0}-\u{26F5}\u{26F7}-\u{26FA}\u{26FD}\u{2702}\u{2705}\u{2708}-\u{270D}\u{270F}\u{2712}\u{2714}\u{2716}\u{271D}\u{2721}\u{2728}\u{2733}-\u{2734}\u{2742}\u{2744}\u{2747}\u{274C}\u{274E}\u{2753}-\u{2755}\u{2757}\u{2763}-\u{2764}\u{2795}-\u{2797}\u{27A1}\u{27B0}\u{27BF}\u{2934}-\u{2935}\u{2B05}-\u{2B07}\u{2B1B}-\u{2B1C}\u{2B50}\u{2B55}\u{3030}\u{303D}\u{3297}\u{3299}\u{1F004}\u{1F0CF}\u{1F170}-\u{1F171}\u{1F17E}-\u{1F17F}\u{1F18E}\u{1F191}-\u{1F19A}\u{1F201}-\u{1F202}\u{1F21A}\u{1F22F}\u{1F232}-\u{1F23A}\u{1F250}-\u{1F251}\u{1F300}-\u{1F321}\u{1F324}-\u{1F393}\u{1F396}-\u{1F397}\u{1F399}-\u{1F39B}\u{1F39E}-\u{1F3F0}\u{1F3F3}-\u{1F3F5}\u{1F3F7}-\u{1F4FD}\u{1F4FF}-\u{1F53D}\u{1F549}-\u{1F54E}\u{1F550}-\u{1F567}\u{1F56F}-\u{1F570}\u{1F573}-\u{1F579}\u{1F587}\u{1F58A}-\u{1F58D}\u{1F590}\u{1F595}-\u{1F596}\u{1F5A5}\u{1F5A8}\u{1F5B1}-\u{1F5B2}\u{1F5BC}\u{1F5C2}-\u{1F5C4}\u{1F5D1}-\u{1F5D3}\u{1F5DC}-\u{1F5DE}\u{1F5E1}\u{1F5E3}\u{1F5EF}\u{1F5F3}\u{1F5FA}-\u{1F64F}\u{1F680}-\u{1F6C5}\u{1F6CB}-\u{1F6D0}\u{1F6E0}-\u{1F6E5}\u{1F6E9}\u{1F6EB}-\u{1F6EC}\u{1F6F0}\u{1F6F3}\u{1F910}-\u{1F918}\u{1f937}\u{1F980}-\u{1F984}\u{1F9C0}]+/.freeze
OVERQUALIFIED = [
"\u{1F91D}\u{1F3FB}", # handshake: light skin
"\u{1F91D}\u{1F3FC}", # handshake: medium-light skin
"\u{1F91D}\u{1F3FD}", # handshake: medium skin
"\u{1F91D}\u{1F3FE}", # handshake: medium-dark skin
"\u{1F91D}\u{1F3FF}", # handshake: dark skin
"\u{1F93C}\u{1F3FB}", # wrestlers: light skin
"\u{1F93C}\u{1F3FC}", # wrestlers: medium-light skin
"\u{1F93C}\u{1F3FD}", # wrestlers: medium skin
"\u{1F93C}\u{1F3FE}", # wrestlers: medium-dark skin
"\u{1F93C}\u{1F3FF}", # wrestlers: dark skin
# Overqualified emoji sequences as entered via the iOS emoji picker.
"\u231A\uFE0F", # watch
"\u231B\uFE0F", # hourglass
"\u25FE\uFE0F", # black medium small square
"\u2614\uFE0F", # umbrella with rain drops
"\u2615\uFE0F", # hot beverage
"\u2648\uFE0F", # Aries
"\u2649\uFE0F", # Taurus
"\u264A\uFE0F", # Gemini
"\u264B\uFE0F", # Cancer
"\u264C\uFE0F", # Leo
"\u264D\uFE0F", # Virgo
"\u264E\uFE0F", # Libra
"\u264F\uFE0F", # Scorpius
"\u2650\uFE0F", # Sagittarius
"\u2651\uFE0F", # Capricorn
"\u2652\uFE0F", # Aquarius
"\u2653\uFE0F", # Pisces
"\u267F\uFE0F", # wheelchair symbol
"\u26AA\uFE0F", # medium white circle
"\u26BD\uFE0F", # soccer ball
"\u26BE\uFE0F", # baseball
"\u26C4\uFE0F", # snowman without snow
"\u26F2\uFE0F", # fountain
"\u26F3\uFE0F", # flag in hole
"\u26F5\uFE0F", # sailboat
"\u26FA\uFE0F", # tent
"\u2757\uFE0F", # heavy exclamation mark symbol
"\u2B1B\uFE0F", # black large square
"\u2B1C\uFE0F", # white large square
"\u2B55\uFE0F", # heavy large circle
"\u{1F004}\uFE0F", # mahjong tile red dragon
].freeze
def strip_emoji
str = strip.force_encoding("UTF-8")
OVERQUALIFIED.each do |emoji|
str = str.gsub(/#{emoji}/, "")
end
str.gsub(EMOJI_RX, "")
end
end
# Example usage:
# "👩👩👧👦 fun🤝🏽".strip_emoji.strip
# # => "fun"
# "👩👩👧👦⛲️🀄️".strip_emoji.length
# # => 0
I’ve already ported this to Swift and Python, and put together a repo intended to keep these as living documents that are updated to keep up with new emoji. If you’re into this kind of thing, please make pull requests as you discover new edge cases. You can create PRs against the [README.md][], which contains the main regular expression, or against any of the languages you use. And if you port this to any other language, please add a routine to the repo!
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://brettterpstra.com/2025/01/04/stripping-emoji-from-a-string