As of WordPress 4.2, by default WordPress includes support for Emojis. Great if that is your cup of tea, but if not, you might want to remove the additional resources Emoji support adds to your webpages.
The screenshot below shows the source code of what loads on the front-end of your website.
The above adds a script on each page load: /wp-includes/js/wp-emoji-release.min.js?ver=4.2.2
In most situations Emoji support probably won't add a significant amount to your load time. However if you want to remove as many unnecessary resources as possible to shave every few milliseconds you can off your load time, then they could be worth removing.
How to Disable Emojis
There are two main ways you can disable Emoji support in WordPress, using either a WordPress plugin, or a few lines of code added to your functions.php file.
Functions.php
If you are comfortable editing theme files, the best way to disable Emojis is by adding the following code to your functions.php file:
remove_action( 'wp_head', 'print_emoji_detection_script', 7 ); remove_action( 'admin_print_scripts', 'print_emoji_detection_script' ); remove_action( 'wp_print_styles', 'print_emoji_styles' ); remove_action( 'admin_print_styles', 'print_emoji_styles' );
WordPress Plugin to Disable Emojis
There is currently one main plugin that will do the work for you if you aren't a big fan of coding.
The Disable Emojis plugin from Ryan Hellyer currently has 39 five star ratings at time of writing.
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Main image by el_finco @ Flickr.