The best Android keyboards for GIF and emoji lovers

Emoji make our messages funny, here are the best Android keyboards to find the cutest ones and share them with friends

In 1999, when Shigeta Kurita created emoji, few people expected such a huge success.

Now there are books and videos that explain how these faces have changed the way we communicate.

There is an emoji for every mood: sad face when something bad happens, smiling when we are happy.

But emoticons are no longer enough to express our feelings and ideas: the next step is GIFs. Present now on any instant messaging application, GIFs allow you to enrich conversations with your friends thanks to clips from movies or TV series. Compared to emoticons, they are rich in meaning and simplify communication between two friends. Facebook Messenger integrates emoticons and GIFs directly within the application, while to use them within other instant messaging services you need to download Android keyboards designed specifically for emoji.

Kika Emoji Kayboard

Let's start with one of the most famous: Kika Emoji Keyboard. It is an app that features a keyboard where you can download new emoji all the time. The various smilies will be divided into a series of packs divided by themes. Each of these packs can be downloaded for free, though there are also advertisements. The same feature can also be used to download and search for animated GIFs. And there's no shortage of support for sharing on popular platforms like Hangouts and Facebook Messenger. To avoid lengthy searches there are also automatic suggestions, to discover the most used emoji.

GO Keyboard

Go Keyboard provides a good collection of emoji that you can download. Unfortunately, there is no support for animated GIFs. This is partly made up for by the presence of various stickers that you can create and share. Go Keyboard supports over 30 different languages.

TouchPal Emoji Keyboard

Praised as one of the best apps of 2015, TouchPal Emoji Keyboard offers plenty of emoji to use within conversations. However, it lacks support for GIFs. Also, with the keyboard we will have included a space for notes.The app supports more than 150 different languages. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of advertisements, even a bit invasive at times.

Minuum Keyboard

The Minuum keyboard provides some interesting features besides the classic emoji and GIF packs. You can set, for example, keyboard gestures: with a swipe to the left we'll be able to erase everything we've written, while swiping to the right will insert a space, while a tap up will activate Google Voice and at the bottom the Enter key.

GIF Keyboard

This is a no-frills keyboard, no themes, backgrounds or useless functions. A simple keyboard that comes with hundreds of emoji. It also supports animated GIFs and has a whole host of stickers that we can use in our conversations.